Joe Hockey’s tip on handling Donald Trump: offer him help

Anthony Albanese should ask ­Donald Trump what Australia can do to help the US, says former ambassador to Washington Joe Hockey.

Former treasurer Joe Hockey speaks at Defending Australia 2025 at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman

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Anthony Albanese should ask ­Donald Trump what Australia can do to help the US, rather than go to his upcoming meeting with the President with a list of requests or demands, former ambassador to Washington Joe Hockey says.

Ahead of Mr Albanese’s first face-to-face meeting with the President, the Coalition has called on the Labor leader to ensure he walks away with the promise that US tariffs on Australian products will be lifted and the AUKUS ­defence pact upheld.

But Mr Hockey – who developed a good working relationship with Mr Trump – said the way to “disarm” the President would be to enter the meeting with an offer to help him in some way.

“I’d walk in and say, ‘Mr President you’ve got a war in Ukraine to deal with, you’ve got a war in the Middle East to deal with, you’re trying to restructure the biggest economy in the world ... everyone that meets you asks for something. I’m here to say, what can I do to help’,” he told the Defending Australia summit in Canberra.

“Donald Trump is very focused on sizing you up immediately, working out whether you are on his side or the other side. And I’d be a little disarming in that sense and do that.”

Mr Hockey added that Mr Trump was the most “open and transparent” political leader he’d ever dealt with. Mr Albanese is expected to meet Mr Trump late on Wednesday, AEST, following a ­series of bilateral engagements with other world leaders.

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before leaving the White House on his way to attend the G7 Summit in Canada. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

H.R. McMaster, another speaker at the summit who was close to Mr Trump after having served as his national security ­adviser, said having a face-to-face meeting with the President was key to having the US leader ­“listen”, and stressed Mr Trump was “not an ideological person”.

“He sees himself as a disrupter. He’s reflexively contrarian,” Mr McMaster said.

“Despite him being rude in that Volodymyr Zelensky … disastrous meeting, he’s typically gracious in person. Yes, his public persona is … borderline offensive, but really as a person he can be ­engaging and he does listen ... he learns conversationally.”

Mr McMaster confirmed that “one of the biggest things in Australia’s favour” in negotiations with Mr Trump was the fact it had a trade deficit with Washington, along with Canberra having withstood Beijing’s economic coercion.

“(China) tried that with Australia through economic coercion and failed. I think he respects that. He respects the fact that Australia stood up to Chinese Communist Party coercion,” he said.

He also invoked former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull for having built a positive relationship with Mr Trump, despite a “rocky start” where an early phone conversation that included their disagreements on migration was heavily featured.