What Trump's China message means for Australia

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Anthony Albanese's meeting with the US President Donald Trump has received high praise across the board.

Even former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull gave it a 10 out of 10.

And despite the slightly awkward interaction between Donald Trump and Kevin Rudd, Anthony Albanese has ended his Washington trip by shaking the ambassador's hand and giving onlookers two thumbs up.

It's a bit Scott Morrison of him, isn't it?

And despite the success, there are challenges ahead.

Welcome to Politics Now.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis.

And I'm David Spears.

Good to have you back, PK.

Very excited to be with you on our regular Wednesday edition of the Pod, David.

Look, the meeting, we've talked about it yesterday with Raph Epstein.

We kind of of gave it high marks.

I don't know if we quite gave it a mark, but we certainly said positive things about it.

That's your assessment, too.

Everyone's given it pretty high marks, right?

Apart from Susan Lee, but yes.

Apart from Susan Lee, which you are right.

The coalition has tried to sort of suggest maybe it's not the best outcome.

It was all right, but not too good.

Yeah, and maybe we should start there because it is interesting.

I think with oppositions, there's a tendency these days to

bite at everything, every day, right?

Give everything a whack.

And I sometimes wonder, would it be more beneficial, would it be better for them if they were a bit more strategic and backed in things more often?

And then when they do offer a criticism of something, it carries more weight.

I just think, yeah, having a crack at, you know, demanding Kevin Rudd be brought home.

Sure, you can point out the awkwardness and embarrassment.

Everyone's done that.

But to demand that he be brought home because of that moment yesterday in the White House, it just seemed a little bit much.

And even Jane Hume, who admittedly no great fan of Susan Lee, it seems right now.

She was dumped by Susan Lee.

The context is important.

She was thrown off the front bench.

Yeah, so

what has Jane Hume said?

That it's a little churlish.

Look,

she has basically said her colleagues are being churlish by seizing on previous comments made by Kevin Rudd.

I reckon that's a very interesting intervention by her, though, because it goes to the broader point you're making about the way they're framing

themselves as an opposition, you know, that they're sweating the small stuff.

She didn't say that, that's me.

But that they are just picking some dumb political points that are actually not going to do them any favours.

Like on this meeting,

I don't think there's heaps of politics for them to extract.

They just have to accept it was a good day at the office for the Prime Minister and move on.

Even more than that, I mean, what happened yesterday at the White House really pulled the rug out from underneath so much of the coalition's message about this Trump-Albanese relationship and how the meeting would go down.

You know, we were told when Anthony Albanese formally recognised Palestinian statehood that this would be terrible for the relationship with Trump and the administration in the United States.

Defence spending, you know, we've been told for years this is the big problem in the relationship.

It's all going to be a disaster.

You know, AUKUS is looking wobbly.

He needs to have this meeting because otherwise AUKUS is going to fall over on each of these fronts.

I mean, those questions were answered emphatically by Donald Trump yesterday.

Then he gets this critical minerals deal as well.

And PK, for the opposition, sure, I mean, they're saying we welcome it, we welcome it.

Does the opposition now support taxpayer investment in critical minerals?

Because they went to the election with Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor saying this was billions for billionaires.

They didn't support taxpayer investment in this sort of industry intervention from the government to help critical minerals get along.

Now they're very happy with this outcome.

Is this a formal change in policy for the coalition?

I'm still a little unclear.

It's vibes at this stage, but you're right.

There is an inconsistency between the position they took before the election and where they've landed right now.

Having said that, now I'm going to be very fair to the opposition.

They are in a process of big review on a lot of policies.

You don't expect them to sort of settle everything, including big questions like that about taxpayer interventions on things like this.

I'd say they were at the point.

I'd say, look, we're five months, nearly six months since the election.

You're playing hardcore today.

No, I don't think they should settle all their policies, but I do think you should have a principled position, given what's happening with this pretty important market, critical minerals, rare earths, what China's doing to the US.

This is a big deal globally, right?

Now, I think it's a principle position.

I'm not saying a detailed policy, but do you think the government of Australia should be helping get this industry off the ground in this global environment, given its importance to our main ally, the United States, given what our major trading partner, China is doing?

Haven't they just said yes then?

I think they have, but as I say,

it's a little unclear to me.

They have.

I think they have.

Now they might have to tackle that sort of deeper question, as you say, about

government money and where it goes and whether it props up these kinds of industries.

But I think they've essentially, because they have backed in.

Out of all of the things that happened out of this meeting, obviously they're happy that AUKUS was ticked off.

They keep reminding us that AUKUS started under them.

You know, there's always a bit of an undertone there, isn't there?

Like, yeah, you know,

almost annoyance that the Albanese government continued it.

And I'll explain what I mean because they actually argue that they're happy, but they also want everyone to know it was their idea, you know, that Scott Morrison came up with this plan.

And now

it's fair enough, isn't it?

Sure, but execution is everything with AUKUS.

So keeping AUKUS

afloat, getting investment from Donald Trump to keep it going, it is not meaningless.

Like let's just reflect on that for a second.

That has been a big question, Mark.

There have been questions that the administration and some of the people around, like Bridge Colby, have raised about AUKUS.

And now we're getting a locking in at the highest level and what appears to be an engagement from Donald Trump that didn't seem inauthentic to me.

It's not irrelevant, is it?

No, this is a big moment on AUKUS.

I mean, this answers the big question that's been, well, one of the big questions that's been hanging over it.

Will Trump continue it?

I mean, you know, we can still speculate about what might happen when it comes to the crunch.

And it's time in the 2030s to actually hand over one of these Virginia-class submarines.

Who will be the president?

Will they actually do it?

But right now, Trump, you know, endorsing it in such a full-throated way, full steam ahead,

you know, even suggesting it needs to be accelerated.

This means that it has bipartisanship well and truly here and in the United States.

It's survived under the Morrison and now Albanese governments.

It's survived under the Biden and now Trump administrations.

And yes, all the signs were that this would happen, but to hear it from Trump himself really matters.

Really matters.

Look, the whole kind of Kevin Rudd brouhaha, I reckon, is now sort of dead on arrival.

Do you agree with me?

Yeah,

I saw Dennis Richardson, a former ambassador and former department secretary of every security department that matters over his long career in Canberra.

He made the point that

it's now kind of clear the air on this.

Yes, it was embarrassing.

It was awkward.

Everybody saw it, but in a way, it's now done and dealt with.

There was a bit of a mop-up afterwards.

And I heard the Prime Minister point out in one of his, he did the rounds of interviews this morning, that after the cameras left, they had their lunch.

They then went back into the Oval Office later in the afternoon for meetings with Donald Trump.

And Kevin Rudd was in the Oval Office, I think he said in one of his meetings for that.

So that tells us, doesn't it, that he's hardly a huge problem for the president if he's then sitting down in the Oval Office with the PM.

Absolutely, David.

And, you know, the truth is Donald Trump is not going to think about Kevin Rudd for another second in his life.

No.

Sorry, but he's just not.

Like, get a grip, Australia.

The president barely engages in thoughts about Kevin Rudd or anyone else.

Yeah, I mean, look, there is a view, to be fair, that, you know, this is the second time.

Remember, Nigel Farage interviewed Donald Trump ages ago and put to him what Kevin Rudd, the Australian ambassador, had said.

And Trump had a bit of a blow up at that point.

What do you call it?

Not the brightest bulb.

So it's a couple of times where, you know, he's not known who Kevin Rudd is or feigned not knowing who Kevin Rudd is.

There's a school of thought that he's sitting there directly opposite.

Of course, he would have been introduced, at least at the start, before the cameras were wheeled in to the four or five people sitting across from him, that he feigned not to know him and wanted to absolutely slot him for the stuff that he tweeted all those years ago and did that quite effectively.

Anyway, that's one interpretation of what happened.

It's plausible.

It's plausible.

I personally don't plausibly believe it, but it doesn't mean it's not, you know, we don't know.

That's the truth, right?

So it's a theory.

It's getting inside Donald Trump's head, which is

never easy.

Well, yeah, and the head is like, we are certain that the head is quite unpredictable and sort of erratic.

So trying to have an analysis is, I think, a waste of time in some ways.

Look, another part of this meeting, right, that I think was really worth us exploring is

something

in relation to the China kind of relationship and the threat of China.

Clearly, critical minerals is all about that.

Like that's the elephant in the room, the fact that China has this sort of stronghold and we're trying to break that nexus.

So that's part of this.

But then a specific question in relation to China and consequences here.

David, what did you make of the way Trump answered this?

Go into it for me.

Yeah, so I think this is potentially even more significant than any of the very positive outcomes on critical minerals and AUKUS and so on.

And they all sort of relate to China.

But what he said on China in response to a pretty direct question about Xi Jinping's plans to invade Taiwan or whether he does have a desire to invade Taiwan.

Trump said China doesn't want to do that.

And in those simple words, I think Trump is saying out loud something that he's kind of touched on a couple of times.

It's pretty rare, though.

We don't get too many glimpses into his, this is getting in his head again, into his thinking on what is really the biggest strategic question.

of our time for our region and potentially the world.

Will the U.S.

be drawn into a war with China over Taiwan?

Trump is saying there from the White House yesterday with Anthony Albanese by his side, China doesn't want to do that.

You know, he went on to talk about the United States is the strongest military power in the world by far.

It's not even close.

He said, we have the best equipment.

We have the best of everything.

Nobody's going to mess with that.

I don't see that at all with President Xi.

I think we're going to get along very well.

He's due to meet him in a couple of weeks in South Korea.

So what does this mean?

There's an interpretation of it from Malcolm Turnbull, from others, that this really undercuts the last decade or so of hyperventilating we've had about the threat posed by China here amongst security hawks in Australia and indeed in the United States.

It certainly runs counter to what some of those others who are sitting alongside Trump, his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and most importantly, Pete Hegzeth, his Defense Secretary, have been saying about China and what its plans are for Taiwan.

Hegzeth has been saying the threat is imminent.

You know, he's made it very clear this should be taken very, very seriously.

There's also a view, though, I was just talking to Sam Roggevine, who's a strategic expert.

I'm just writing a piece on this at the moment, that this is actually dangerously wrong from Trump to assume that the U.S.,

yes, may be the strongest military power in the world, but when it comes to any conflict over Taiwan, He reckons Trump is badly wrong.

And this has big consequences for us as well in this region, because if one side is completely underestimating what the other side can do militarily, then that's a pretty bad place to be starting these big strategic questions from.

So I just think this is quite a significant moment.

Trump, we know, is pretty keen on avoiding wars, ending wars.

He

loves the idea of peace.

But is he misreading what Xi Jinping is planning to do and underestimating China's military capacity?

I think

this is quite significant, what he said.

It is significant, but again,

you know, going back to the psychoanalysis of Donald Trump, which is sort of a fool's game, but I'm going to do it.

You know, he says things and then he sort of says something else, right?

Like he's not consistent is what I'm trying to say.

I think that's a very good point because look at Russia, Ukraine and how many times Trump flips back and forth.

So we're recording this Wednesday.

The second Russia-U.S.

meeting has now been cancelled, David.

Like, okay, that was.

It's cold.

It's off.

It's cold.

It's off.

So this is, again, a guy who's, I think, really stabbing in the dark often.

Now, sometimes he has good luck.

And I think it's great that there's a ceasefire in the Middle East, which is, you know, as the Prime Minister congratulated him for, like, too late in my view, but, you know, better late than never.

Okay.

But

he says things and then he sort of changes course.

And I think on China, he can either be a hawk or not, depending on the last ear he got or what sort of his analysis is of the business kind of deal.

I think that's true.

On China, though, he has said this or something similar to this a few times, playing down the prospects of conflict or indeed China's desires for Taiwan.

Because this has much, much higher stakes for the U.S.

and for us, frankly, than the conflict in the Middle East, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

This is World War III stuff.

We're talking about China, the U.S., the two big superpowers.

And a few times now he's sort of said this.

He's a long way from Joe Biden, who, you know, what was it four or five times, said the U.S.

would go to Taiwan's defense militarily and the White House would walk it back and then he'd say it again.

Trump is something different when it comes to this.

He

clearly believes in deals, reckons he can woo Xi Jinping in a couple of weeks when they sit down, sort out trade issues and the Taiwan issue as well.

Would

Would Donald Trump be prepared to risk American lives in defense of Taiwan?

I don't think we've heard him indicate anything that suggests that he would.

Others around him, Rubio, Hegseth, and so on, sure.

They're a lot more hawkish on this and have been for a long time.

Trump, not so much.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that.

And let's not forget this man's mantra, with the exception of the kind of big bunker-busting bombs in Iran, which was brief.

And can you believe that sort of fizzled out, which was shocking?

We thought that would be a bigger incident.

This is a man whose instincts are often to de-escalate, as you say, didn't want new wars, forever wars.

This is not his vibe.

This is not what he wants.

This is not what he got elected on.

So I think that's right.

But it is interesting that he has people like Bridge Colby near him who, what, wasn't that long ago, David?

I think I was filling in for you on Insiders when the story emerged that they were kind of putting pressure on Australian officials about what we would do and whether we would get involved in a conflict.

There are inconsistencies in the administration.

And we had that debate here that got into a real twist about, you know, should we offer some sort of assurances?

Well, that's when Angus Taylor went off on his own and then had to pull it back in opposition as the defence spokesperson.

Either way,

back to the main game.

Australia, I think, is on pretty solid, comfortable ground at the moment when it comes to the US-Australia relationship.

Absolutely.

No one can argue that it's in the doldrums.

That's not fair.

I think Albanese's personal popularity is something that the president really rates because he cares about that sort of thing.

So Albanese being his highway.

It was the first thing Trump said, you're pretty popular, you know, pointing to his big election win.

Trump notices this stuff big time and it really counted.

And he would have been briefed.

This guy's got 94 seats.

He won a thumping majority.

He smashed his opposition.

That's what he would have been told, right?

And he was like, oh, God, the guy's good.

Good on him.

You know, because he likes winners.

Just adjacent to that, Fico, did you notice the moment when Trump called him a great prime minister and then said, you know, sort of leant over to him and said, how did you like that statement?

Was that good?

And Albanese sort of tried to crack a joke and said, yeah, I'll be using that in my campaign material for the next election in 2028.

Didn't really get a laugh from Donald Trump at that point.

I'm not sure if the joke didn't quite land.

I mean, clearly he's not going to use Trump's lines in his campaign material.

But I just, it was a reminder that he did actually, the Labor Party did use Trump in their last election campaign, but not to to help Anthony Albanese, to hurt Dutton.

And I wonder if Trump's aware of that.

I wonder.

Yeah, that's absolutely right.

Look, I'm not sure if he is.

I do wonder sometimes just how really in the weeds he is of the domestic politics of a country, a middle power like ours.

Look, final thoughts from you, David?

Look, bottom line, the takeout from this meeting, it is a huge success for Anthony Albanese, no doubt about it.

I mean, Paul Kelly in the Australian called it an immense victory domestically, strategically.

He has embedded his authority as our national prime minister.

So a pretty effusive take, I think, right across the board when you pick up all the papers and read the analysis of how people are viewing this.

It has left the opposition looking a little churlish, as Jane Hume put it today.

I'd be surprised if they continue to pursue the Kevin Rudd must be brought home line of attack.

We'll see.

But for Anthony Albanese, as he heads home,

once again, he'd be feeling pretty good about how this week's gone.

Yeah, that's right.

And next week's a big sitting week, and now this is kind of sealed

and they can move on from this ongoing saga, which has sort of been, will he, won't he, when will they meet?

It's all over.

He can move on with his life.

Well, that's it for politics now for today.

David, you'll be in the feed on Saturday for Insiders on Background.

Any hints on that yet?

Yeah, talking to Justin Bassey, the head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, about what those Trump comments on China now mean, but also the takeouts on AUKUS and critical minerals and so on, a fair bit to unpack strategically from this big moment in the White House.

And can I say,

you should also ask him, what did he make of Donald Trump's relaxed posture towards defence spending?

Because Donald Trump's pretty relaxed about Australia's commitment to defence spending.

That was another

thing we didn't expect.

You can do what you can do.

Was that the line?

Yeah, it was

doing what we can.

So yes, David, in your feet on Saturday.

Now, don't forget, tickets to the Politics Now, the Party Room live show at the Canberra Theatre are available December the 2nd.

I'll be joined by Fran Kelly and special guests.

Now, Fran's currently away, as you know, so don't worry, she's on her way back for the grand arrival.

And you can get tickets,

all of the information is in the show notes.

Any questions, send them to the partyroom at abc.net.au and we'll answer them.

See you, David.

See you, Pico.