This was published 6 months ago
Winning friends and influencing people in Trump 2.0’s orbit
The launch of former prime minister Scott Morrison’s book was an unlikely look at what Australia’s diplomatic efforts might look like under a return of Donald Trump.
Credit: Artwork — Matthew Absalom-Wong
It was a notable show of bipartisanship at the Australian embassy’s glitzy new headquarters in Washington.
On the stage was former prime minister Scott Morrison, launching a book about God as he shared the microphone with two key members of Donald Trump’s first administration – former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former senior counsel Kellyanne Conway.
Sitting in the front row was Trump’s once-loyal vice president, Mike Pence, who famously defied his boss’ orders to overturn the 2020 election results and has now refused to endorse his bid to return to the White House.
Former prime minister Scott Morrison met Donald Trump recently but it will be Kevin Rudd who will run Australia’s diplomatic effort.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen, AP
And behind the lectern was former Labor prime minister and now US ambassador Kevin Rudd, once such a fierce critic of Morrison’s leadership that he accused him of “gaslighting” Australians during the pandemic and of “botched diplomacy” over the AUKUS submarine deal.
Years later, ahead of a presidential election that could test the bonds of the US-Australia alliance, political differences were cast aside.
“Only Scott Morrison could bring together such a broad church,” joked Rudd as he spruiked his book in front of an enthusiastic audience filled with conservative politicians and aides, think tankers and religious leaders.
But while the embassy event last month might have raised a few eyebrows, it was also a masterclass in winning friends and influencing people in Trump’s orbit before the November 5 election.
Since coming to Washington, Rudd and his team have been working overtime to engage with Republicans who are likely to be part of a future Trump government, from vice presidential contenders such as senators Tim Scott and Marco Rubio, to potential cabinet picks such as ex-trade representative Robert Lighthizer and former national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
The energetic ambassador has also visited the heartland of Republican donors in Utah; hobnobbed with members of Congress on Capitol Hill and last week even travelled through America’s Bible Belt to promote Australia’s interests.
With Trump and Biden now neck and neck in most polls, last month’s book launch was just a necessary extension of Australia’s outreach effort. More than 400 people were on the embassy guest list that night – and almost all of them are likely to end up with jobs in a future Trump administration.
It’s the kind of effort that is now taking place elsewhere in Washington, too, as lobbyists, consultants and non-partisan groups across the US prepare for the possibility of Trump 2.0 – and what that could mean for Australia’s national security, economy and democracy.
At the DC office of The Asia Group, Arthur Sinodinos, a former US ambassador turned chairman of the strategic advisory firm’s Australia practice, is keeping a close eye on critical challenges the nation could face if Trump became president again, from the ripple effects of an aggressive expansion of tariffs on China to the ongoing viability of the AUKUS military pact.
At Bondi Partners, the advisory firm founded by another previous ambassador, Joe Hockey – who used golf diplomacy to charm Trump while in office – an extensive “mud map” lists every person who could influence the former president if he wins another term. The group is well-connected with many of them.
Indeed, some former Trump aides also work for the consultancy, such as his ex-principal deputy chief of staff Emma Doyle, who is Bondi’s managing director, and former acting chief Mick Mulvaney, who is a key adviser.
In the US private defence sector, Morrison has taken two jobs alongside key Trump allies who could end up in his future cabinet.
The first is with American Global Strategies, the boutique consultancy founded by Robert O’Brien, where Morrison is now a non-executive vice-chairman; the second is with AUKUS investor DYNE Maritime, alongside Pompeo, where he is a strategic adviser.
“Any time there’s a potential change of government, it’s really important to have a plan for communicating the value of a relationship – and to do that early and often,” says Meredith Miller, a former US State Department official who is now a partner at the Albright Stonebridge Group.
“So it makes sense that Australia is really investing in outreach to senior people close to Trump – and to Trump himself – about the value of the US-Australia alliance, and not just resting on its laurels from the first term.”
But what exactly would a second term bring and how should we navigate that relationship? After all, Trump came to office in 2017 withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, and berating then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee settlement agreement made by the Obama administration.
This time, among other things, he plans to supercharge tariffs on imports from all nations, weaken NATO, abandon Ukraine, and expand presidential power over every arm of the federal government.
Asked how Australia should manage its relationship with Trump in Washington if he wins, Doyle, who spent two years providing counsel to Trump and later worked in the office of First Lady Melania Trump, points to recent comments made by outgoing Dutch PM Mark Rutte, the newly appointed NATO chief.
At the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, Rutte told European leaders that instead of “moaning and whining” about Trump, “we have to work with whoever is on the dance floor”.
“I think statements like that are really helpful for foreign leaders. Just starting from a place of mutual respect actually goes pretty far with him,” Doyle says.
“Even being on the left isn’t necessarily as much of a downside with Donald Trump as people might think,” she adds.
“I mean, he used to be a life-long Democrat, he’s a New Yorker, and Hillary Clinton attended at least one of his weddings. For him, it’s more about: Do I like this person? Do we get along? What’s he said about me?”
Trump’s ability to forgive what has been said about him will be critical for Australia – not least because of Rudd’s past criticisms, in which he described the incendiary Republican as “nuts”, a “traitor to the West” and “the most destructive president in history”.
The comments were made years ago when Rudd was an “independent think tanker” with the Asia Society in New York. However, they came back to haunt him in March when former Brexit party leader Nigel Farage told Trump about them during an interview on Britain’s right-leaning GB News.
“He won’t be there long if that’s the case,” Trump replied. “I don’t know much about him. I heard he was a little bit nasty. I hear he’s not the brightest bulb. But I don’t know much about him. But if, if he’s at all hostile, he will not be there long.”
The rebuke hit like a thunderclap in Canberra as speculation mounted over how long Rudd could keep his job, while at the embassy’s DC headquarters, the phones began running hot – including from Republicans seeking to assure the team that Trump’s incendiary words shouldn’t necessarily be taken as a serious threat.
Three months later, Rudd has still had no formal contact with Trump or his campaign team.
Morrison, on the other hand, was able to squeeze in a private meeting while the former president was on trial in Manhattan for fraudulently paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.
He later tweeted a photo of himself standing next to the Republican in the golden surrounds of Trump Tower, noting it was “nice to catch up, especially given the pile-on he is receiving in the US”.
It didn’t take long for the rumour mill to start spinning.
As Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, will lead the diplomatic effort.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“Was that a future ambassador Morrison meeting a soon-to-be again President Trump?” asked the headline in the Lowy Institute’s international magazine, The Interpreter.
Morrison says Rudd was not mentioned during the meeting, which focused instead on AUKUS – which he announced alongside Biden and then-British prime minister Boris Johnson in 2021 – as well as China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific and the threat to Taiwan.
“It was just a great opportunity for me, firsthand, as the author of AUKUS to say, “This is what AUKUS is designed to do and it’s completely aligned with those things’,” he told this masthead, noting Trump gave the pact a “warm reception”.
“Trump is often accused of being isolationist, but he just doesn’t like the US being taken for a ride and we cannot be accused of that.”
Across the US, there’s a vast network of think tanks and other non-partisan groups keeping abreast of Trump 2.0 policies while strengthening ties between Australia and the US, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia (AmCham), to the New York-based American Australian Association, led by former US ambassador to Australia John Berry.
AmCham chief executive April Palmerlee says her non-partisan group has spent considerable time engaging with Republicans from all levels of government.
“I am confident the AUKUS partnership will remain a core focus for the US, Australia and the UK, even as all three countries undergo elections in the next 12 months,” she says.
Palmerlee also expects to see a focus on higher tariffs, a retreat from the World Trade Organisation and the demise of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which Australia has been negotiating with Biden and other Asian nations.
“It will be incumbent on the Australian prime minister to make the argument to Trump about tariffs, about collaboration on critical minerals and about defence industrial integration himself, and to do so through a personal relationship with him – even though that can be quite challenging,” says Charles Edel, the Australia chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Then there’s the presidential transition itself, part of which has been outlined in a 920-page Heritage Foundation blueprint known as Project 2025, which draws on the views of about 100 conservative organisations and a string of ex-Trump administration officials.
Developed over two years, the plan pushes for an unprecedented expansion of presidential power and the politicisation of the federal government, including potentially replacing thousands of existing public servants with political loyalists.
But this also poses questions for Australia, whose relationship with the US is built on a series of shared values, including democracy.
As some Washington observers are now asking: If that erodes under Trump 2.0, where does that leave us?
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