Albanese ponders trip to Europe to meet Trump, but he risks political disaster if he's stood up

The Guardian

5 hours ago

The air was well and truly sucked out of the G7 summit in Canada's Rocky Mountains on Monday as Donald Trump announced he was leaving early to head home to Washington.
The resort town of Kananaskis was overrun by politicians, journalists and diplomats as the country's prime minister, Mark Carney, sought to avoid a repeat of Trump's performance at the same event back in 2018.
The then first-term president blew up negotiations between the leaders of the world's biggest economies on a joint communique statement before leaving town, throwing insults at Carney's predecessor Justin Trudeau and Germany's Angela Merkel.
Carney, who like Britain's Keir Starmer seems to have a good grasp on how to deal with the erratic US president, nearly got the show over the line.
Trump's decision to leave a day early was justified by the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, on which the assembled leaders were struggling to find consensus with the US.
Trump's run to Air Force One also deflated Anthony Albanese's trip to Canada for the summit.
The Australian prime minister had spent months preparing for his first face-to-face with Trump, and was under some political pressure to pull it off successfully. Ties between the leaders of the two countries have often been a litmus test for a prime minister's grasp of foreign affairs and since Australia isn't a member of the G7, the bilateral was a major reason for Albanese's decision to fly to the US and Canada.
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After things went to custard, Albanese told the travelling media pack he might make a snap visit to Europe next week, if a meeting with Trump can happen during the Nato summit in The Hague, starting on Tuesday.
He told a press conference the idea was being considered, later pointing out that Starmer had invited him to come to the UK early in the new parliamentary term as well.
Despite a long list of agenda items to discuss, another lengthy journey to a summit dominated by Trump comes with inherent risks. With the world on fire and Trump impatient with the advice of his peers, Albanese won't be the US president's top priority in the Netherlands.
If Trump made a last minute decision not to go, or stood the Australian leader up, an inconvenient scheduling decision might blow out to a full blown foreign policy snub.
Sources close to Albanese say he wouldn't get on a plane so soon after arriving home on Thursday without clear confirmation Trump will go to the talks, and encouragement from the White House that a meeting will actually happen this time.
Anything less would be a political disaster and cause Australia to question whether we have been relegated to a second class ally for Washington. Having won the election by campaigning against Trump, Albanese now needs to govern alongside him for at least the next three years.
Starmer and Albanese took a walk together after their formal meeting on Tuesday evening, taking in the dramatic landscape and crisp mountain around the resort. They talked about Trump's positive words on sticking with Aukus, and shared notes on the state of the world. The Nato talks will be an opportunity for the Australian perspective to be considered by world leaders.
Albanese had a positive bilateral meeting with Nato's secretary general Mark Rutte in Calgary before the summit got under way. Amid a relentless schedule of meetings with leaders from around the world, Rutte, the former prime minister of the Netherlands, showed warmth to Albanese and congratulated him on Labor's 3 May election victory in Australia.
Rutte understands realpolitik, but is also leading one of the major international institutions just as the world seems to be coming apart at the seams. His meeting with Albanese came just days after he warned countries not prepared to spend more on defence should 'learn to speak Russian'.
Kananaskis wasn't a total bust for the visiting Australian. He agreed to negotiate a new defence and security agreement with the EU and took part in important talks on critical minerals and energy supply. His first term experience in foreign affairs has given him more fluency and confidence with leaders like Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Emmanuel Macron.
But a run to Nato risks looking desperate and could open Labor up to more serious claims of poor custodianship of the US alliance.