Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much. It's great to have the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Australia. Fantastic place and a lot of
Speaker 1: friends over there, and this is one of them right here.
Speaker 1: The prime ministers, as you know, Anthony Orberanici and he's.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and Anthony Alberzi have finally had their first
Speaker 2: formal meeting. And while Trump is used to a procession
Speaker 2: of world leaders going through his door, there was more
Speaker 2: at stake for Alberanzi, who's attempting to manage an increasingly
Speaker 2: difficult relationship. In the end, the two leaders managed to
Speaker 2: strike a deal on critical minerals and keep the Orchest
Speaker 2: deal seemingly on track, but there are lingering questions about
Speaker 2: what that deal will mean for our relationship with China,
Speaker 2: as well as whether Kevin Rudd can stay on as ambassador.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven Am Today
Speaker 2: Press Gallery journalist Karen Middleton on what went on inside
Speaker 2: the room when the two leaders met and what it
Speaker 2: all means for the Australia US Alliance. It's Wednesday, October
Speaker 2: twenty two, so, Karen, the Trump Albanezy meeting has finally
Speaker 2: gone ahead. So when the two sat down together what happened.
Speaker 2: I think it was a very positive meeting. Johnald Trump
Speaker 2: was effusive about the Prime minister.
Speaker 1: It's a great honor to have you as my friend.
Speaker 1: It's a great honor to have you in the United
Speaker 1: States of America.
Speaker 3: They signed this critical minerals deal, and I'm you know,
Speaker 3: it was important that there'd be a substantive outcome the
Speaker 3: Australian government could point to, and they've been working hard
Speaker 3: on that deal. Ambassador Kevin rid in Washington's been working
Speaker 3: very hard on locking that in for But we.
Speaker 1: Are discussing critical minerals and rare earths and we're going
Speaker 1: to be signing an agreement that's been negotiated over a
Speaker 1: period of four or five months. And it was such
Speaker 1: a good timing.
Speaker 3: He was very positive about Anthony Alvinezy, about being a
Speaker 3: popular prime minister, that he's a good prime minister, that
Speaker 3: he was governing well, so much so that I think
Speaker 3: Anthony Albanis he actually equipped that he'd be happy to
Speaker 3: use that exchange in his campaign advertising for the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty eight elections. The other thing that the Australian government
Speaker 3: really wanted from this meeting, which was a positive sentiment
Speaker 3: about the August submarine deal. You saw the Navy Secretary
Speaker 3: called upon to give an update.
Speaker 4: What we're really trying to do is take the original
Speaker 4: Orchest framework and improve it for all three parties, to
Speaker 4: make it better, to clarify some of the ambiguity that
Speaker 4: was in the prior agreement. So it should be a
Speaker 4: win win for.
Speaker 3: Everybody, and the President himself, although there was still a
Speaker 3: question about further details, he was endorsing the deal and
Speaker 3: saying it will proceed, You will get submarines and that
Speaker 3: will be a great comfort just getting that on the
Speaker 3: public record to be Australian government correct.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't be any more clarifications because we're just going
Speaker 1: now full steam ahead buildings.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that is a relief. But Trump wasn't positive
Speaker 2: about everyone. He certainly wasn't positive about the US ambassador,
Speaker 2: about Kevin Rudd. We heard him tell Rudd that he
Speaker 2: doesn't like him and that he never will. What is
Speaker 2: your read on that interaction and what do you think
Speaker 2: it's going to mean for Rudd's role.
Speaker 3: So that was a fascinating and very awkward moment in
Speaker 3: the exchange. It was all lighthearted and if you watch
Speaker 3: the full exchange and listen to it, you can get
Speaker 3: the sense of the President was sort of jabbing and
Speaker 3: joking at the same time. It was a question asked
Speaker 3: by Sky News, is Andrew Clennel.
Speaker 5: This administration with the stance on Palestine, climate change, or
Speaker 5: even things the ambassador said about you in the past.
Speaker 4: He's trained ambassador.
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about him. And if you said
Speaker 1: bad then maybe he'll like to apologize. I really don't know.
Speaker 3: When the President says, oh, does he still work for you?
Speaker 3: And rud has to do a little wave, you know,
Speaker 3: and Kevin Right is hard to hear underneath, but he
Speaker 3: actually says, first thing, he says, well, it was all
Speaker 3: you know, it was some time ago. But when the
Speaker 3: President says that, Kevin Wright actually says, I withdraw those relanksositions.
Speaker 1: But I don't like you either and probably never will
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 3: So he did make that effort in the room at
Speaker 3: the time, and then we're told afterwards he did approach
Speaker 3: the President and say that he apologized, and the President,
Speaker 3: we are told, said words to the effect of.
Speaker 2: All is forgiven.
Speaker 3: So look, in the end, what you've got in that
Speaker 3: White House is a situation where you've got the president
Speaker 3: who calls the shots. But this president in particular has
Speaker 3: people around him who are very eager to fight his
Speaker 3: battles for him, and so they are taking their cues
Speaker 3: from the President. And there have been those in the
Speaker 3: White House that have been antagonist towards Kevin Rudd. What
Speaker 3: this may do in the end is it may end
Speaker 3: up kind of calming things down a little because the president,
Speaker 3: if indeed he is saying, Okay, let's we're done now,
Speaker 3: let's forget about that, this may enable that issue to
Speaker 3: you know, have been aired and dealt with, and maybe
Speaker 3: things are actually going to be better from here.
Speaker 5: On in.
Speaker 2: And Karen, we spoke about the press in the room,
Speaker 2: the journalists asking Trump and Alban easy questions. There was
Speaker 2: one notable exception, though, the ABC's America's editor, John Lyons.
Speaker 2: The ABC says he applied to be one of the
Speaker 2: journalists covering that meeting, which makes sense, but that the
Speaker 2: Prime Minister's office rejected that request. And this comes obviously
Speaker 2: after Lyons asked Trump a series of questions about his
Speaker 2: personal business dealings. Sell appropriate President Frank that a president
Speaker 2: in office should be engaged in.
Speaker 3: So much business activity.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm really not. My kids are running the business
Speaker 5: and you know what the activity.
Speaker 1: Where are you from the Australian broadcasting.
Speaker 5: The Australias. You're hurting Australia. In my opinion, you are
Speaker 5: hurting Australia very much right now. Now they want to
Speaker 5: get along with me. You know your your leader is
Speaker 5: coming over to see me. I'm going to tell them
Speaker 5: about you. You said a very bad talent, well.
Speaker 2: Go ahead questions, which clearly irritated Trump a few weeks ago. Now,
Speaker 2: so what should we make of the Prime Minister's Officer's
Speaker 2: decision to deny Lyon's entry.
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting, it's not the first time that the
Speaker 3: Prime Minister's Office made a decision to exclude people like
Speaker 3: that has happened from time to time. If they have
Speaker 3: excluded John Lyons, it may also be because that program
Speaker 3: that he was asking questions about on Donald Trump's finances
Speaker 3: actually went to air on four corners before the meeting,
Speaker 3: which I'm sure the government might have preferred hadn't occurred.
Speaker 3: So maybe they've made a decision specifically to keep him
Speaker 3: out for that reason. Going back generations, when I used
Speaker 3: to travel with prime ministers, there was often pressure from
Speaker 3: the Whitehouse to restrict the numbers who went into the
Speaker 3: Oval Office, and there was a lot of pushback from
Speaker 3: the Australian side to those suggested restrictions, and there was
Speaker 3: some success over the years in allowing all of the
Speaker 3: traveling media to go in. Subsequently, when Tony Abbott was
Speaker 3: Prime Minister, when Julia Gillard was Prime Minister, they didn't
Speaker 3: push back as hard, and there were numbers restrictions and
Speaker 3: there were ballots held. I managed to be excluded in
Speaker 3: two of those ballots. It was interesting that I happened
Speaker 3: to me twice. I'm either really unlucky or sometimes you
Speaker 3: can be locked out of the room for reasons of numbers,
Speaker 3: sometimes because people want you to be locked out of
Speaker 3: the room. It doesn't look under this administration like they
Speaker 3: particularly restrict numbers. He has large media contingents asking him questions.
Speaker 3: So that's one to follow up. I guess with the
Speaker 3: Australian government whether they had a particular reason for leaving
Speaker 3: John Mines outside.
Speaker 2: Coming up critical minerals and the balancing act between China
Speaker 2: and the US, Karen. The headline news out of the
Speaker 2: Trump Albanese meeting was the eight point five billion dollar
Speaker 2: critical minerals deal.
Speaker 3: So what's in it, Well, it's a joint investment proposition.
Speaker 3: It's involving a billion US dollars from each of the
Speaker 3: two countries. It's designed to secure the supply chain.
Speaker 1: In about a year from now, we'll have so much
Speaker 1: critical mineral and rarer said, you won't know what to
Speaker 1: do with them. They'll be worth about two dollars. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime we're working with Australia and other countries.
Speaker 1: They're working well.
Speaker 3: And the timing of all this is good for Australia
Speaker 3: because we've seen China, which has a sort of vicelight
Speaker 3: grip on the supply of rare earths and critical minerals
Speaker 3: around the world, announcing restrictions on its export of those
Speaker 3: kinds of minerals in recent days in response to the
Speaker 3: tariff punishment that Donald Trump has meted out to it.
Speaker 1: And if they don't do business with US, I think
Speaker 1: China is in big trouble. I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I think China is. I don't know that they even
Speaker 1: make it, I really do. I believe that they're in
Speaker 1: big trouble.
Speaker 3: And there are something like seventeen critical minerals China is
Speaker 3: restricting the export of about twelve of them. They not
Speaker 3: only dominate the production but also the processing of them
Speaker 3: around the world. So this Australian proposed deal with the
Speaker 3: US offers the United States another source for critical minerals
Speaker 3: that helps to try and break that group with China.
Speaker 3: It involves, in the first instance, a couple of key projects,
Speaker 3: the first one in Western Australia and then one in
Speaker 3: the Northern Territory, and the first one in the West
Speaker 3: Australian one is actually a trilateral venture involving Japan as well.
Speaker 3: So it becomes a way of those three countries in
Speaker 3: engaging on commodities that are important to the whole world
Speaker 3: and certainly important to the three countries militaries in terms
Speaker 3: of military technology and technology generally. So, Anthony Albanezi, you'll
Speaker 3: be very very happy that it's been He says it's
Speaker 3: worth about ultimately about eight and a half billion dollars
Speaker 3: in total, and they did actually sit there at the
Speaker 3: table and sign those documents for what he calls a
Speaker 3: framework agreement.
Speaker 2: Given what you're saying about this really being about the
Speaker 2: US trying to counter its reliance on China when it
Speaker 2: comes to these materials. Is making a deal like this
Speaker 2: with the US risking our relationship with China.
Speaker 3: Well, this is the difficulty that Australia and the Australian
Speaker 3: government faces trying to finesse the landscape between security and
Speaker 3: military issues and trade issues. You know, we are very
Speaker 3: dependent on China still for trade and for our economic success.
Speaker 3: And what we did see recently with China making that
Speaker 3: decision about restrictions on export of minerals, that's a plus
Speaker 3: for Australia in the context of minerals. The downside of that, though,
Speaker 3: is that the response from some in the US administration
Speaker 3: was to call on their allies and friends to decouple
Speaker 3: from China in an economic sense. Now Australia certainly doesn't
Speaker 3: want to do that, It doesn't want to go that far.
Speaker 3: So it has to balance in its relationship with the
Speaker 3: US its own economic interests and security interests around China,
Speaker 3: and it's got to balance those in its relationship with China.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting that on the eve of the
Speaker 3: meeting between Donald Trump and Anthony Albanezi we saw revelations
Speaker 3: of another skirmish involving the Chinese military and the Australian military.
Speaker 3: Surveillance flights being interfered with, allegedly by Chinese military, prompting
Speaker 3: Australia to make a forceful complaint to the Chinese government.
Speaker 3: So there is tension still on the military side, on
Speaker 3: the security side in our relationship with China, and the
Speaker 3: government is trying to walk this line between having warmed
Speaker 3: up the frozen relationship on the trade issues that existed
Speaker 3: under Scott Morrison's administration now try and balance these security
Speaker 3: questions and when there's a complicated relationship between the US
Speaker 3: and China as well.
Speaker 2: And Trump was also asked about whether he would consider
Speaker 2: removing tariffs on Australian exports, including that fifty percent tariff
Speaker 2: on steel and aluminium. Why does America such goody tariffs
Speaker 2: ot of friends?
Speaker 1: And well, we don't, yeah, what we do in some cases.
Speaker 1: We do in many cases because we've been treated unfairly.
Speaker 1: But actually the tariffs are very late.
Speaker 2: The one thing is, you may he appears to not
Speaker 2: be budging on that though, So how damaging is that
Speaker 2: outcome both for the Australian economy but also for Albanezi Politically.
Speaker 3: I think the government will probably try to cut its losses,
Speaker 3: certainly for the steel and aluminium industry.
Speaker 2: It's not good news.
Speaker 3: I know the Department of Foreign Affairs was pressing when
Speaker 3: Australia got a ten percent tariff overall to not make
Speaker 3: too much of a fuss about tariffs because we were
Speaker 3: getting off lightly compared to other countries. And that was
Speaker 3: certainly the message that President Trump delivered at that table
Speaker 3: with Anthony Alberanezi beside him. You know you've only got
Speaker 3: ten percent. Other countries are a lot worse off. So
Speaker 3: look at maybe the case that the government comes out
Speaker 3: of the meeting saying, look, we got the key headline
Speaker 3: things that we were after, we'll keep working on the tariffs.
Speaker 3: He's clearly not for turning on that at this point,
Speaker 3: and you'd be happy with the outcome that you ended
Speaker 3: up getting.
Speaker 2: And so ca. It sounds like this meeting went about
Speaker 2: as well for alban Easy as he could have hoped for.
Speaker 2: But how difficult do you think Australia's position is right now?
Speaker 2: Because on the one hand, the US is obviously an
Speaker 2: important ally to Australia, it always has been. But on
Speaker 2: the other hand, there is this deepening ideological divide between
Speaker 2: the US and a lot of Western countries, including Australia.
Speaker 2: So how tricky is it for the government to navigate
Speaker 2: the practical part of the partnership, the submarines, the trade
Speaker 2: deals while also weighing that up.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, this is a this is an unusual president,
Speaker 3: and so this is a different relationship naturally between the
Speaker 3: two countries than it has been under previous administrations. For
Speaker 3: that reason, I mean, Australia has always been able to
Speaker 3: fall back on history in its relationship with the United States,
Speaker 3: and successive Australian governments have made the point that the
Speaker 3: alliance is stronger than any one administration either here or there,
Speaker 3: that it transcends personalities. It's not like that with Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: The personality and his way of doing things is dramatically
Speaker 3: different than his predecessors. So you can't fall back on
Speaker 3: that tradition and that history anymore. And it requires a
Speaker 3: different way of thinking. I think it's a more transactional
Speaker 3: way of thinking. That's a word we use all the
Speaker 3: time in relation to Donald Trump and the US administration.
Speaker 3: But the Australian government has to argue its case more forcefully.
Speaker 3: What it brings to the relationship, what it offers to
Speaker 3: the US administration, what the US needs from Australia, So
Speaker 3: we have to be more vigilant about it. We have
Speaker 3: to make more effort, We have to keep a closer
Speaker 3: eye on it. And what are we prepared to hold
Speaker 3: our ground on and what must we hold our ground on.
Speaker 3: It's a slightly different way of thinking about the relationship
Speaker 3: than it might have been for administration's past.
Speaker 2: Well, Karen, thank you so much for your time. Thanks Ruby.
Speaker 2: Also in the news, the United States has sent its
Speaker 2: senior advisors to meet Israel's Prime minister in Jerusalem to
Speaker 2: discuss security challenges following a peace agreement between Israel and Tamas.
Speaker 2: Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner have met Benjamin ette Yahu
Speaker 2: after a weekend of renewed violence when Israel's military launched
Speaker 2: air strikes that Gaza's health ministry says killed at least
Speaker 2: forty five Palestinians. Despite the escalation, both Israel and Thomas
Speaker 2: have reaffirmed their commitment to the ceasefire, and Federal Opposition
Speaker 2: leader Susan Lee is calling for Australia's ambassador to the US,
Speaker 2: Kevin Rudd, to resign following his exchange in the Oval
Speaker 2: Office with Donald Trump. Over comments made by Rudd in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one in which he described Trump as a
Speaker 2: village idiot. Despite the President reportedly saying all is forgiven,
Speaker 2: Susan Lee says she's standing by her calls for Rudd
Speaker 2: to stand down. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.