PM flags India as next chance for Trump meeting
Anthony Albanese has flagged a meeting with Donald Trump in India in early September as pressure builds on the government to make its case directly to the US president over defence spending and tariffs.
After Trump cancelled a scheduled meeting with Albanese on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada two weeks ago, and had no time to meet at the NATO summit in The Netherlands last week, the next likely option for their first face-to-face meeting was in the US in late September when Albanese addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
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Sydney Morning Herald
39 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Donald Trump, Anthony Albanese and Waterloo: How US discourse is racing to the bottom of vulgarity
In a stunning display of political disarmament, the NATO member nations (except for Spain) capitulated to Trump's demands for a massive increase in their defence spending as a percentage of each country's GDP. NATO chief Mark Rutte wrote to Trump, 'you will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done'. Trump got that one up immediately on Truth Social. Trump had mellowed further by the time he went home. 'These people really love their countries. It's not a rip-off, and we're here to help them.' If anything, Trump is an irresistible force. But he has not yet met an immovable object – not in Congress, not in the courts, not in the media, not in the bureaucracy and not in NATO or in Denmark's Greenland, or at the Panama Canal. Trump has reopened his massive trade war with Canada. Trump has not given up on those imperial acquisitions he hungers for. Gavin Newsom called Trump's 'one big, beautiful bill' a 'one big bullshit bill'. Credit: AP In the wake of all this, how will Trump treat Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Australia when they meet in person? Trump will be fully briefed on Albanese's posture against NATO's percentage-of-GDP number for defence, on Australia's votes against Israel in the United Nations, on Australia's support for the International Court of Justice, on the PM's equivocation on whether the Iran strikes violated international law. Trump knows Musk, Meta, Google and Amazon are infuriated by Australia's social media controls and local news content payment laws, and want them scrapped. It would never occur to Trump, if he wants more success in his trade wars, to say to those countries who are not playing ball, 'you want a better deal with me? Well, take a look at Australia. They have a trade deficit with us. I reward them with minimal tariffs. You want to escape the weapons I use on trade? Be more like Australia.' Trump is incapable of saying that. He will prefer instead to put tariffs on Australia's pharmaceuticals. At week's end, the Supreme Court further ratified Trump's extraordinary executive powers. The court has now barred federal judges from imposing nationwide injunctions on suspect executive orders. The court is likely to reinterpret the precise words in the constitution that bestow citizenship on anyone born in the United States. States may well be able to say whether a child born in their borders is a US citizen – or stateless. Trump's assaults on the media are more brutal than ever. He hated CNN's Iran coverage. 'Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should immediately be reprimanded, and then thrown out 'like a dog'.' Trump is demanding that Congress defund public media – PBS and NPR, 'the radical left monsters that so badly hurt our country'. The Senate will vote on that in July. Loading Trump is injecting a sepsis-like infection of political expression. Trump shocked the world with his F-bomb. It capped a decade of his resort to obscenities, denigrations and defamatory rants. The United States now lives in a race to the bottom of an echo chamber of vulgarity. California governor Gavin Newsom last week attacked Trump's 'one big, beautiful bill' pending in Congress: 'The Republican One Big Bullshit Bill proves that we've known all along. They don't care about you.' So the BS word is now lingua franca with the F-bomb.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
‘Bugger off': PM urged to act over Donald Trump's refusal to meet
Anthony Albanese has been urged to tell the US President to 'bugger off' during an agonising line-up of interviews over his failure to secure face-to-face talks. As the Prime Minister faced breakfast TV this morning to spruik a range of July 1 changes, his good news announcement was overshadowed over questions surrounding the 'embarrassing' situation with the Trump administration. Mr Albanese is now the only member of the Quad group — India, the US, Japan and Australia — not to have met Mr Trump in person since his re-election as President and tariff decision. 'Disrespectful' PM grilled over US President Today show host Karl Stefanovic said he 'can't comprehend how the President, given how close allies we have been with the US for so long, couldn't give a rat's about meeting with you'. 'I think it's so disrespectful. And why don't you just tell him to bugger off?' Stefanovic asked. 'Sorry, I've lost the audio there,' Mr Albanese replied. 'Have you? Karl was just asking if you. Why don't you tell the president to bugger off?' host Sarah Abo added. 'He seems to be snubbing you.' 'No, not at all. And we've had really constructive discussions,' Mr Albanese said. 'They've been respectful. I've been respectful of the President.' Why planned talks were cancelled Mr Albanese did not meet with Mr Trump earlier in the year amid speculation he wanted to avoid an unpredictable meeting in the lead-up to the election. And while he was expected to have a brief chat at the G7, that idea was put on the back burner. 'Look, every Quad leader has met him. It's all got a little bit embarrassing hasn't it? Pretty simple question. When are you going to meet the Donald?' Stefanovic said. 'Not at all. Look, we will meet when we meet in coming months, but my priority has been on delivering for Australians,' Mr Albanese said. 'Do you have a date? It sounds a bit open-ended in coming months,' Abo asked. 'Well, it is at this point in time, but we'll have a meeting. We've had a few constructive discussions,' Mr Albanese replied. Speaking on Sunrise, Mr Albanese was again grilled over the failure to secure talks with the US President. 'Are you just kicking yourself for [not] getting on that plane to meet Trump earlier?' host Nat Barr asked. 'Are you now looking at this and thinking it was a mistake to leave it this late?' 'Not at all, Nat!' he said. 'I've had my priorities right, which the Australian people got to have their say in on May the 3rd, which is why I'm still speaking to today. 'We're available for a meeting. We would've met at the sidelines of the G7, except that the President quite understandably left and left meetings with others as well, left the G7 to go back to Washington because of what was happening with Iran and Israel.' Mr Albanese was also grilled over former Prime Minister turned US ambassador Kevin Rudd's description of the US President as 'a village idiot'. Suggesting there was 'no coming back from Mr Rudd's past comments about the President' Mr Albanese was then asked, 'Are you putting your loyalty to Kevin Rudd above our alliance with the US?' 'Well, JD Vance had some pretty strong comments, it's gotta be said, and he's now the Vice-President of the United States of America,' Mr Albanese replied.
Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Sky News AU
‘I'm not commenting': Anthony Albanese refuses to respond to Paul Keating's latest criticism plan to double superannuation tax
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has refused to respond to Paul Keating's latest criticism of Labor's unrealised gains tax, telling Sky News Australia he was 'not commenting' on the various things other people had said. The Albanese government is proposing to double the tax on superannuation accounts with a balance of more than $3 million. The tax would also apply to unrealised capital gains, meaning the government would be taxing perceived wealth rather than actual income. Labor has defended the scheme by pointing out the tax would only apply to a tiny number of Australian superannuation accounts, but former Labor prime minister and superannuation architect Paul Keating took a veiled swipe at the proposal on Monday. Mr Keating said 'every young person joining the workforce this year' will have accumulated 'in excess of $3 million at retirement'. When asked about whether the former Labor leader was right in his calculations, Prime Minister Albanese simply praised Mr Keating's creation of the superannuation system. 'Paul Keating is right to support superannuation, and it's a creation of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments (and) Paul Keating, of course, as treasurer, then as prime minister, championed superannuation to improve retirement incomes for Australians,' he told Sky News Australia. First Edition host Pete Stefanovic again asked Mr Albanese whether Mr Keating was right that the average worker would eventually be caught up in the tax. 'Well, these are very modest changes discussed,' Mr Albanese said. Stefanovic pressed the Prime Minister, asking, 'But is Paul Keating right? I'm on Paul keating now,' leading to a terse response. 'Well, good on you. You stay on Paul, I'll stay on superannuation,' Mr Albanese said Asked if he was avoiding it because Mr Keating was right, the Prime Minister said he was 'talking about superannuation and our superannuation guarantee being lifted to 12 per cent'. Stefanovic then asked whether Labor was at least open to indexing the threshold at which the tax would be imposed, pointing out ACTU Secretary Sally McManus had called for this on Tuesday morning. 'I'm not commenting on various things that you tell me other people have said,' Mr Albanese responded. Mr Keating is reportedly furious at the Albanese government over its proposal to tax unrealised gains, with the Australian Financial Review reporting last year that the former Labor leader had called the changes 'unconscionable'. Keating-era ACTU secretary Bill Kelty – who also played a role in the creation of the Superannuation system - has similarly hit out at the changes, describing them as 'flawed' and 'bad policy'.
