Richard Marles will represent Australia at NATO meeting after Anthony Albanese confirms he won't attend

West Australian

4 hours ago

Anthony Albanese won't attend next week's NATO meeting in the Netherlands, forgoing his first chance to meet Donald Trump since his snubbing at the G7 summit.
Earlier this week, the US President left G7 early and cancelled a planned meeting with the Prime Minister amid rising tensions between the countries.
Mr Albanese had been considering heading to the Netherlands for the defence-focused gathering — which was a change of heart after he had already announced his deputy Richard Marles would be representing Australia at NATO.
Now it's back to plan A, with Mr Marles to head off early next week.
The reasons for Mr Albanese's rethink of going to NATO were twofold.
Firstly, the June 25 security talks among European and US leaders come at a time of global unrest, with wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.
The American president is expected to go to the NATO meeting, although with his attention focused on the Israel-Iran conflict, he may still pull out at the last minute.
The Middle-East conflict led to Mr Trump departing the G7 in Canada a day early this past week.
The US been pressuring Australia to spend significantly more on defence, the Pentagon is currently reviewing the AUKUS pact with its pledge to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, and Australia has been caught up in the White House's sweeping tariffs.
Government sources said Mr Albanese was keen to arrange a meeting with Mr Trump soon.
Mr Albanese did speak about the trade issues with senior US officials while in Canada and Foreign Minister Penny Wong pressed the case for AUKUS with Marco Rubio during a phone call on Friday.
'We talked about the Indo-Pacific and the importance of our partnership to stability, peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific,' Senator Wong said.
'I've outlined, as you would expect, the benefits to all countries, all three countries of the AUKUS agreement, an agreement which I think is so important for strategic balance in the region, that means protecting peace, preventing conflict and assuring prosperity and security for all countries. And AUKUS is a contribution to that.
'I've also outlined, just as the Prime Minister has, the near-term benefits to the United States, including additional maintenance days and more days in the water for more submarines.'
NATO has traditionally been focused on Europe and North America.
But the convergence of security interests has prompted deepened ties between the bloc the four Indo-Pacific nations — Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.
Mr Albanese has attended two previous NATO summits and met NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte in Canada last week. Mr Marles also attended the gathering in Washington DC last year.
This time, the leaders of Japan and New Zealand are heading to the Netherlands, and the South Korean president is keeping the door open to attending.
Senior Opposition frontbencher James Paterson said he'd support Mr Albanese attending NATO regardless of whether he met with Mr Trump because the security discussions were so important.