Summit season stands as Prime Minister Albanese's best chance to meet Trump

West Australian

8 hours ago

The Prime Minister is unlikely to get the chance to meet Donald Trump for at least another two months — and then it'll probably be on the sidelines of a summit rather than at the White House.
Anthony Albanese could make as many as eight overseas visits before the end of the year, with five of them likely putting him in the same location as the US President.
However, as he discovered at the G7 summit in Kananaskis in Canada in June, Mr Trump's changeable priorities mean there's no guarantee of securing anything.
Mr Albanese said his office and the White House were working through the timing of a meeting.
Previously, the attitude from government officials had been they wanted to line something up as quickly as possible to settle growing issues within the alliance, particularly around defence spending and the AUKUS pact.
But on Tuesday, during a variety of interviews, Mr Albanese appeared more relaxed about the timing.
'When we have a meeting, we'll have a meeting. And when it's scheduled, that will occur,' he told Sky News.
On Seven's Sunrise, he said that 'summit season' towards the end of the year offered multiple opportunities to meet.
'We have the G20, we have APEC, we have a range of meetings where the US President would be expected to attend, as well as leaders in the region, as well as of course the Quad meeting that will take place this year in India,' Mr Albanese said.
'Importantly here, I think that Australian viewers and lookers, watchers and readers, of some of the media would think that Australia is this little country that doesn't contribute anything to this relationship. We do. We're an important ally for the United States.'
However, he conceded the timing of the presidential meeting remained open-ended, and said Australian and US ministers and officials were continuing talks.
A date for the Quad leaders gathering — which will involve Mr Trump, Mr Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba — is tipped to be set as part of their foreign ministers' meeting overnight.
Host nation India has reportedly been looking at dates in September.
Mr Albanese is also expected to head to the United Nations General Assembly in late September, which would put him within a short flight of the White House.
Scott Morrison timed his 2019 visit to Donald Trump with the UN gathering, enabling him to meet several other key world leaders on the same trip and address the General Assembly, which Mr Albanese is yet to do.
The US and Australian leaders are also likely to both attend the APEC meeting in Korea at the end of October and the G20 in South Africa in November.
Mr Trump may head to the ASEAN and East Asia Summit meetings in Malaysia earlier in October, just ahead of APEC, although it's not always a given that the US President attends in person.
Also pencilled into the prime ministerial diary — alongside eight parliamentary sitting weeks — is a trip to China for the annual leadership dialogue later this month, the Pacific Island Forum in the Solomon Islands in September, and possibly the UN climate conference in Brazil in November.
Australia wants to host next year's UN climate conference, but is in a stand-off with Turkey as each waits for the other to pull out of the running.
There is value in the Prime Minister being able to speak with other leaders at these major summits and represent Australian interests on the global stage, United States Studies Centre international relations expert Brendon O'Connor said, even if it was just a shorter 'meet and greet'.
When it came to the Trump administration, Professor O'Connor said there was just as much benefit from meeting his top advisers and cabinet members — as Mr Albanese did in Canada — and people shouldn't 'obsess about the idea of meeting' the President himself.
'There's this obviously very difficult balance with Trump at the moment, of not wanting to get Australia into unnecessary fights with Trump but, on the other hand, being out of sight, out of mind isn't entirely a bad thing with Trump,' he said.
'I think some of the media coverage of when will Albanese meet Trump, I don't think it's that useful … I don't think there's any great benefit of meeting Trump.'
He pointed to the troubled Oval Office meetings with some leaders, notably Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa, saying something on the sidelines of a summit would be a more attractive proposition for Australia.
'I wouldn't be advising the Australian Prime Minister to have a long sit down chat with the US media present and Trump just free-forming about which Australian leaders he likes and doesn't like, and why Australia is a good country or not a good country, and expecting whoever's there to basically agree with him,' Professor O'Connor said.
Shadow defence minister Angus Taylor accused Mr Albanese of being 'more interested and more able to get a meeting with the President of China than the President of the United States'.
'We've got to get serious about this. Whether it's on the economic side, the trade side, on the national security and defence side, we've got to get serious about it,' he said.
Since his inauguration in January, Mr Trump has hosted 14 world leaders at the White House and met a further six on overseas trips.
Out of the OECD and G20 countries, there are 33 leaders he is yet to meet in-person this term.