Australian PM Albanese will visit Trump ‘as soon as possible’ after election
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Mr Anthony Albanese said his officials have already been in contact with their American counterparts following Washington’s tariff announcement.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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CANBERRA – Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will travel to the US to meet President Donald Trump “as soon as possible” in the event he wins a May 3 election, saying his officials have already been in contact with their American counterparts following Washington’s tariff announcement.
Mr Albanese said he had been invited to the US and will travel there if he is re-elected in May, while adding that he is not getting ahead of himself given there are still four weeks to go in the election campaign.
“I will go as soon as possible,” Mr Albanese told reporters in Sydney on April 4. “We’ll engage diplomatically in a considered way.”
When asked if there had already been discussions between US and Australian officials in the wake of the tariff announcements, Mr Albanese said there had been, without elaborating.
Centre-right opposition leader Peter Dutton has said he will make his first official overseas trip to the US to meet with Mr Trump if he wins office.
Australia was hit with a comparatively light tariff of 10 per cent in the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” announcement
However, as a long-time ally that runs a trade deficit with the US, there was nonetheless widespread dismay in Australia at the announcement.
Mr Trump was already unpopular with the Australian electorate prior to the imposition of the tariff, with 60 per cent of people surveyed by Redbridge saying his November election victory had been bad for Australia.
Mr Albanese’s centre-left government has been floating a deal on critical minerals with the Trump administration, though no agreement has been reached as yet.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick cast more doubt on such an outcome in an interview with CNN, where he described Australia’s biosecurity regulations that prevent US beef being sold in the country as “nonsense”.
At the same time, there had been some relief in the Albanese government following the tariff announcement.
Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell told Sky News on April 4 there had been some concern that the levy could be as high as 20 per cent. BLOOMBERG
