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United States President Donald Trump is still “keen” to meet with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese although the precise time of a rescheduled get-together is still up in the air, Foreign Minister Penny Wong has said.
“I had a really good meeting with Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and he expressed regret for the [Trump-Albanese] meeting having to be rescheduled,” Wong told Sky News Australia on Thursday.
When asked about the time and whereabouts of a rescheduled meeting, Wong said the Australian government was “very flexible about those arrangements”.
“The president is a very, very busy man. But I was pleased that Secretary Rubio made clear that they’re keen for a meeting, [and] they want to reschedule it.
“It was disappointing as he said that they had to reschedule because the president had to return, as a consequence of what was occurring in the Middle East.”
At that time, one of Albanese’s spokespeople described the postponement as “understandable” considering escalating conflict between Israel and Iran — a conflict that the US would enter five days later, bombing three Iranian nuclear facilities.
‘Quite rational’ to review AUKUS
The two leaders were anticipated to meet and discuss several topics, including US steel and aluminium tariffs on Australian products and the AUKUS deal, which is currently under review by the US.
Some of these issues were discussed during a meeting between Wong and Rubio in Washington, where she attended a Quad meeting with other members of the diplomatic partnership: the US, India and Japan.
“We had a lot to talk about … We live in a region, as Secretary Rubio said, that is being reshaped and the future of the 21st century will be defined by that reshaping,” Wong said.
She said that it is “quite rational” for a new administration in the US to review AUKUS.
“This is a multi-decade task [and] governments, foreign ministers, defence ministers … of all colours will have to deliver this and we’re gonna have to work together,” she said.
After the talks, in a joint statement, the four countries’ foreign ministers said they were launching the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative.
They called the initiative an “ambitious expansion of our partnership to strengthen economic security and collective resilience by collaborating to secure and diversify critical minerals supply chains”.
“We do recognise this [critical minerals] is a strategic asset to Australia but also to our partners,” Wong said.
In response to a question about whether these minerals can play a role in tariff talks with the US, Wong said: “We see the strategic benefit in critical minerals … We have more work to do on how that might work with the United States.
“They are interested and we are interested.”
