Anthony Albanese calls for calm on Donald Trump climate fears as he backs in ‘rules-based trade’

Friday at 11:47 AM

Anthony Albanese has talked up the potential benefit to Australia should Donald Trump make good on his pledge to walk the United States back on clean energy investment.

He made the comments as he prepares to stress to regional leaders the world cannot renege on “rules-based trade” and ruled out a stop to visit Mr Trump to make the case face-to-face after back-to-back summits in South America.

The Prime Minister will address regional leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru on Friday (local time), where Mr Trump’s election win and subsequent trade and climate policy shake up will become the “backdrop” to high level talks.

The PM was on Thursday confident Australia’s relationship with the US would remain strong during Trump’s presidency, and he backed in ambassador Kevin Rudd amid calls for him to be sacked from the post.

Mr Albanese also revealed he had discussed an in-person meeting with Mr Trump during their phone call last week, but ruled out doing so on his way home from South America.

The PM said the pair had begun a “constructive relationship”, but on Thursday did not want to pre-empt how Mr Trump would change US policies — including what the impact of his proposed climate backpedaling and broad-based tariffs would be, including if it pushed more countries towards China.

But, he ultimately said change would likely be felt globally.

“I don’t want to pre-empt action for a government that isn’t in place yet. But obviously there’ll be some consideration. Because the United States represents a quarter of the global economy, the impact that they have is disproportionate accordingly,” Mr Albanese said.

Camera IconMr Albanese also revealed he had discussed an in-person meeting with Mr Trump during their phone call last week. Credit: for the Washington Post

Aside from trade, the unknown trajectory of Mr Trump’s climate and energy policies will have leaders at both APEC and next week’s G20 meeting on edge, given the president-elect’s intention to pull out of the Paris Agreement has raised questions about the future of net-zero and clean energy.

But on Thursday, Mr Albanese talked up the opportunity Australia had to potentially “benefit” from the Trump Administration’s change to climate change policy.

“The Inflation Reduction Act has seen considerable capital flows in the US, and if those investments aren’t there that would have some implications for the nature of the global economy,” he said.

“But we don’t pre-empt that government… certainly we see that Australia has great opportunity through climate action.

“We see that it’s important for our environment, but I also see this about economic opportunity. We have all the resources under the ground that will drive the global economy in the 21st century… We have a great opportunity to produce green hydrogen, we have the best solar resources in the world, and this represents an opportunity for Australia to participate in those measures.”

As for putting the case directly to Mr Trump, Mr Albanese has ruled out a stop in the US on his way home to join the chorus of world leaders trying to meet with the president-elect.

“I’ll have a meeting with President Trump when it is organised. We spoke about gathering, and I’m sure that will occur,” he said on Thursday.

“We’ve had a very constructive beginning to our relationship with a very constructive phone call, and it was very positive.”

The PM wants to instead focus on cementing free and fair trade in the region and shore up investment opportunities

In his intervention at the APEC leaders dialogue on Friday (local time), Mr Albanese will tout the positive global impact of decades of trade progress, and call for economies to hold the line and cooperate in the face of “confronting” challenges like global inflation, the energy crisis, and the Middle East and Ukraine conflicts.

He will also call for the region’s economies to re-commit themselves to “robust, rules based trade”.

“We must all work together… to prove that just as the past thirty years of breaking down tariff walls and building trade bridges has lifted millions of people out of poverty, doubled real GDP and quadrupled per capita income, open, inclusive, rules-based trade remains the best course and surest way to grow our economies and lift the living standards of our citizens,” he will say.

“None of us have to choose between deepening our engagement in the region or strengthening our supply chain resilience. Robust, rules-based trade enables and encourages us to do both.”

He will say “none of us have to choose between deepening our engagement in the region or strengthening our supply chain resilience”, and stress that cooperation is “fundamental” to meeting existing challenges and “seizing the opportunities ahead of us”.

Mr Albanese met with Indonesian President Prabowa Subianto on Thursday, where the pair discussed the close security relationship between the two countries, what impact Mr Trump’s presidency could have on the region; and the need to “de-escalate” tensions in the region.

Mr Prabowa said he was focusing on trying to improve Indonesia’s relationship with all its neighbours, and was looking to work with China to “lower the temperature”.

Speaking later, Mr Albanese said Mr Prabowo was looking to ensure there was “peace, stability and security” in the South China Sea.

“And that there is engagement and dialogue to make sure that there aren’t any incidents that can escalate quickly… It is important that there be engagement and communication so there isn’t any misunderstanding,” he said.

Mr Albanese is seeking to meet with Chinese president Xi Jingping either on the APEC or G20 sidelines.

Before he left China, Beijing – through state media China Daily – nominated Mr Albanese as the leader other American allies should aspire to be like, praising him for his “strategic autonomy” amid “unprecedented geopolitical complexity and uncertainty” after Mr Trump’s election.

Mr Albanese also met with Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, where he praised Peru’s successful leadership of APEC this year and pledged to work closely with her on trade, climate and mining.

Mr Albanese also backed in Australia’s ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd on Thursday, after Mr Trump reappointed deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino. Earlier this week, Mr Scavino took to social media to suggest Mr Rudd’s time in Washington could soon be up because of previous disparaging comments about the president-elect.

“Ambassador Rudd’s doing a good job and that’s been recognised across the political spectrum in Australia, from Tony Abbott to Malcolm Turnbull to Peter Dutton and obviously to the Australian government,” Mr Albanese said on Thursday.

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