'He didn't surprise me': Trump lavishes praise on Morrison over PM's election win

US President Donald Trump has praised Scott Morrison for his “tremendous victory” in the May election and declared that he knew the Prime Minister could win.

Heaping praise on Australia as a strong ally, Mr Trump opened talks with Mr Morrison at the G20 summit in Japan by congratulating him on the election result.

“He didn’t surprise me but he surprised a lot of people,” Mr Trump said.

US President Donald Trump dines with Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Joking at times with Mr Morrison across a dinner table, Mr Trump revealed that he had told the Prime Minister he would win in a conversation before the election.

“I knew him. So I said, you’re going to do very well. And he did,” Mr Trump said.

“They called it an upset but I don’t call it an upset. You probably did – your wife didn’t call it an upset.”

The two leaders met for a working dinner with ministers and officials on Thursday night before the opening of the G20 summit on Friday, with fears about a trade war dominating the agenda.

Mr Trump's decision to hold the dinner surprised some American observers, given the President’s focus on Middle East policy and tension with Iran at this summit, where he has organised nine bilateral meetings with other leaders including Russian president Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabian prince Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

The meeting with Mr Morrison included a significant array of Trump officials and family including his daughter Ivanka, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, National Security Advisor John Bolton and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

The Australians at the dinner included Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, Australian ambassador to the US Joe Hockey, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Martin Parkinson, senior Australian G20 official David Gruen and Mr Morrison's press chief Andrew Carswell.

Mr Morrison emphasised the strength of the military and economic relationship between the US and Australia.

“There’s no better or stronger or deeper relationship than the United States and Australia. We’ve been together for a very long time – 100 years. Fighting together, working together, and [something] speak for themselves,” the Prime Minister said.

The Australian message about military cooperation comes at a time when Mr Trump is seeking help from allies with his approach to Iran, leading to a revival of regular speculation that he may seek more commitments from allies to back his agenda or a military operation.

Asked if his approach to foreign policy sometimes looked like “America alone” to allies, Mr Trump insisted the US looked after its friends.

“We’ve been very good to our allies. We work with our allies, we take care of our allies,” Mr Trump said.

“I’ve inherited massive trade deficits with our allies and we help our allies militarily.

“So we do look at ourselves, and we look at ourselves I think more positively than ever before.

“But we also look at our allies and I think Australia is a good example. We’ve work together very closely, just recently on a big trade situation and we had a little bit of a trade deal going and it worked out very well for both of us.

“Especially when it comes to the great allies, Australia would be right there. We’re very proud of it. It’s one of our oldest and one of our best.

“The battles that we fought together, these were big name battles, they were tough battles and we won every one of them.”

Mr Trump injected significant uncertainty into trade relations with Australia in the past two years by proposing tariffs on steel and aluminium that would hurt Australian exporters, only to give Australia an exemption after a sustained diplomatic campaign by the Turnbull government that relied heavily on the long history of the defence alliance between the two countries.

Mr Morrison went in to the meeting with the president with the intention of urging Mr Trump to halt a growing dispute with China.

The Australian position backs the need to overhaul trading rules just as Mr Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping inch toward a temporary truce after months of increasing tariffs and fuelling fears of an economic downturn.

As leaders arrived in Japan, reports emerged that Chinese and US officials were canvassing options such as delays to additional US tariffs to ease the way for a truce when Mr Trump and Mr Xi meet on Saturday.

Mr Morrison goes into the summit with support from France and Canada on his proposal for stronger rules on social media giants to stop the spread of live video of terrorist attacks.

In a statement before his arrival in the Japanese city of Osaka on Thursday night, Mr Morrison said all the leaders had a "critical stake" in making sure the trading system was durable.

"The alternative does not bear contemplation," he said ahead of his meeting with Mr Trump.

"This means we all have a part to play in solving the problems the system faces.

"The system needs the confidence of its members and clear that is no longer the case. We can't let that mean we slip into a further deterioration in key trading relationships and the collateral damage that would bring."

In a worrying sign for Australian relations with China, there is no bilateral meeting scheduled between Mr Morrison and Mr Xi and there was no such meeting at the last G20 summit, held in Argentina last December.

Mr Morrison held a formal meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Singapore last December.