It won’t be long before Anthony Albanese sits down with Donald Trump in the White House and prays to God the President hasn’t prepared a slideshow-of-shame.
Political jump-scares have become a favourite punishment for visiting leaders who have betrayed Western values.
It has been to our great fortune that Albanese has remained relatively insignificant while the White House was busy brokering peace in the Middle East and wrangling Putin into a negotiating position, however, even a mosquito eventually gets its comeuppance.
The can of Surface Spray will make a close pass in 24 hours when Albanese arrives for what he believes to be an important trade opportunity.
Trade will be a feature, yes, but this is an ideological and geopolitical test.
‘Australia and the United States have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in every major conflict for over a century,’ said Albanese, leaving out the part where he is the first Prime Minister since the war years to actively turn his back on a US President and start brushing shoulders with the expansionist communist power of China.
It must be baffling for a businessman such as Trump to watch Albanese’s government reward China with nation-shackling trade deals after Beijing sent its warships down on unannounced live-fire drills, circumnavigated sensitive military infrastructure, and even tested the waters with a few surprise arrivals in Western Australia.
Albanese is enthusiastically feeding a saltwater crocodile in his backyard, hoping it chooses ‘peace’ instead of eating the kids. Meanwhile, the croc is growing bigger while Trump strolls around nearby, pointing at holes in the fence with a raised eyebrow. The trade deal is Trump selling us a better fence and taking away the bucket of chicken.
Crocodile feeding is a long way from Australia’s reputation of crocodile wrestling so perhaps it isn’t a good idea for Albanese to lean on the shadows of our great men of history…
Australia will only walk away from the White House on Monday with a good deal if that is what the US wants. Albanese has no known negotiating skills, and if anyone needs proof of this, consider the decision to leave Kevin Rudd as Ambassador. That’s like inviting someone over for dinner and leaving the zip-ties and duct tape on the table. It ruins the atmosphere.
Donald Trump has prepped the meeting with harsh tariffs which he can offer to take away as a perceived (albeit not actual) victory. That is the purpose of their existence. It costs Trump nothing to concede a tariff that has no business existing, but it allows Albanese to save face in the press.
The meat of the meeting is Aukus and whether or not Albanese’s China-friendly government can be trusted to play ‘good cop’ to America’s ‘FAFO cop’ in the Pacific. That’s a very big question mark, both on competency and intent.
Australia doesn’t want its promised nuclear submarines, it needs them. The failure of successive governments to prepare our country for war has made us a paper ally instead of a useful friend.
This weakness is the reason public money has been showered on the Pacific under the false banner of ‘climate change’ for years. The recipients know this, and have play-acted to the Green Terror with a wink and a nudge. It is our government that has lied to the Australian people about where their money is going and why.
Australian politicians cannot admit they fabricated climate apocalypse dogma because the answer to the follow-up questions about climate aid money are too embarrassing. Labor and the Coalition share this folly.
Sensible mainstream commentators insist that these things shouldn’t be said, treating the threat of China like a demon whose name must not be mentioned unless it is conjured, but impoverishing the Australian people with Mafia-style protection money is a road to shame and danger.
It is a sorry state of affairs that we, the people, are reliant on the cold strategic ambition of the White House to rescue our defence capabilities and bully our useless leader into making decisions in the national interest.
If we have to watch this salvation project play out in the double-speak of ‘trade’ … whatever. Just get it done.
Dropping the steel and aluminium tariffs in exchange for a new military partnership would be ideal. The US is even sniffing around our rare earths industry via the exciting deal between Noveon Magnetics and Lynas Rare Earths.
‘Australia exports a majority of its minerals to China for processing. 90 per cent of Australia’s lithium goes to China for processing. That’s why the US has been doing some deals directly with Australian companies for minerals … through Australian ports,’ said Hayley Channer from the US Studies Centre.
If Albanese pivots and opens our country (and our undersea territories) to China’s rare earths machine, we’re done. It’s over. Australia can re-name itself as the southernmost state of China.
Remember, Albanese couldn’t even secure the return of the Port of Darwin after promising to do so at the election. This stands as a red flag in our north.
Australia’s politics and socialist-lite attitude under Albanese might be considered distasteful to the White House, but Trump knows that the people of Australia are being held prisoner as were the people of America under the Democrats. More importantly, we are a giant landscape of raw materials which the US wants on hand if things go ‘south’ with China.
The Coalition, under Sussan Ley, has released a rambling statement that says very little of consequence after it was squeezed through the holes of the focus group grater.
‘We cannot allow the Quad to fail,’ Ley said, stating the obvious. ‘We wish the Prime Minister every success in his first formal meeting with the President. When it comes to the Prime Minister stepping into the Oval Office, there is only Team Australia.’ Send a Hallmark card, it’s cheaper.
No doubt the Coalition knows they are share the blame for much of the climate psychosis and anti-free speech nonsense poisoning the conversation.
Every Liberal Prime Minister, from Howard onwards, built Net Zero and it was Dutton’s leadership, under the watch of Sussan Ley, who came up with the new round of censorial legislation on social media.
Ley might as well be in the White House, listening, for all the opposition her party provides on these critical points.
Allow us to hope that Albanese keeps his Medicare card in his pocket and suffers his dressing down without engaging in a battle of wits for which he is ill-equipped.
The US wants Australia to succeed because they are an ally, not an aggressor. All Albanese has to do is ask for help and it will be given.
Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.
