iscover
Opinion: Donald Trump’s cancelled meeting has spared Anthony Albanese a politically awkward encounter, but cost Australia a key chance to advance AUKUS, strengthen US ties and support vital industries, explains Strategic Analysis Australia’s Michael Shoebridge.
So, President Donald Trump has cancelled his planned meeting with Anthony Albanese – along with the chats he was to have had with others, like India’s Narendra Modi, because his priority right now is what’s happening in the war between Israel and Iran.
Fair enough from President Trump’s perspective.
But where does that leave Australia and our Prime Minister? This was meant to be the first face-to-face meeting between our two leaders since Donald Trump returned to office in January this year and since Albanese’s re-election in May.
We’re almost halfway through 2025 and Prime Minister Albanese hasn’t met with the leader of our most important security partner, at a time in world and regional security when that alliance matters and is pretty turbulent. India’s Narendra Modi might also be missing his G7 meeting with President Trump, but the two of them met in February.
Prime Minister Albanese has told us many times how important direct leader-to-leader discussions are when it comes to his relationship with China’s Xi Jinping, and he’s made it a priority to get those meetings with Xi whenever and wherever he can – including in Beijing and at G20 gatherings.
With the Trump administration, though, he has been far less keen. During the election campaign, Prime Minister Albanese talked down the need for an early meeting with Donald Trump, treating it as something that would happen in due course at some time, perhaps later this year. And there has been no apparent effort to organise an early meeting at the White House or invite President Trump to Australia. The G7 meeting was the lonely chance and now that looks like it’s gone.
So, what are we missing? Well, it’s a risky business having a one-on-one meeting with President Trump, as we know from his infamous meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and with South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa. Avoiding a meeting because of that risk is just not in Australia’s interests, though.
Australia has a trading relationship with the US and our security depends on our alliance with America. In both areas, President Trump’s decisions are vital to Australia and our interests. It might be a low probability thing to get the 25 per cent steel and aluminium tariffs lifted from Australian producers, but the Prime Minister should at least try.
But the big thing Prime Minister Albanese told us he was going to do in his meeting with Donald Trump was get the President’s backing of our multibillion-dollar AUKUS submarine partnership, which is clouded by the Pentagon review that’s looking at it right now. He’s lost that opportunity.
And the big thing Prime Minister Albanese was afraid of by even raising AUKUS with Trump was that President Trump would know that under Prime Minister Albanese, Australia’s defence effort makes many of the NATO “underachievers” look heroic.
At 2 per cent of gross domestic product, our defence budget looks like a bad joke, particularly when we hear it’s meant to buy an expensive conventional military and also pay for us to get eight nuclear submarines. Nuclear submarines are powerful things, but they are also eye-wateringly expensive, even in the military realm where billions of dollars seems to buy very little.
Prime Minister Albanese has avoided having to try to justify America giving us some nuclear submarines out of its own Navy’s fleet – weakening itself – to strengthen us, when we are obviously not spending or doing enough to look after our own defence.
Being a free rider on American security while demanding submarines they don’t have enough of themselves is a tricky thing to do.
So, Prime Minister Albanese will be quietly delighted that world events have conspired and his meeting with President Trump has been cancelled. Prime Minister Albanese has avoided a risky encounter where he was on shaky ground and can say how sorry he was this “opportunity” hasn’t happened.
The only losers from this turn of events are Australia and our security relationship with our key security partner. Oh, and Australian steel and aluminium producers.
Let’s hope Prime Minister Albanese thinks building a personal leader-to-leader relationship with America’s president is as important as his relationship with China’s Xi Jinping. And that means an early trip to Washington with some actual time to get into the serious issues Australia and America must manage together.
Michael Shoebridge is a director of Strategic Analysis Australia. This article was first published by Sky Digital and has been republished with the approval of the author.
