 "Trump welcomes Australia's Albanese to White House, says they will 'achieve a lot'")
US President Donald Trump welcomed Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to the White House on Monday, saying he “loves” the Australian people and that the two leaders would “achieve a lot” during their first formal summit since Trump’s return to office in January.
The visit marks Albanese’s first official meeting with Trump and comes as the Australian leader seeks a stronger US commitment to critical minerals cooperation, amid growing concerns over China’s tightening grip on global supply chains.
The centre-left prime minister, who leads the Australian Labor Party and was re-elected in May for a second term, also plans to raise issues including nuclear submarines, trade, and Indo-Pacific stability, reported Reuters.
Albanese traveled to Washington with his minister for resources, underscoring the importance of critical minerals in the bilateral agenda.
Notably, Australia’s foreign and defence ministers did not accompany him on this visit.
At the center of defence discussions is the AUKUS agreement, a landmark A$368 billion (US$239.46 billion) pact reached in 2023 under former US president Joe Biden. Under the deal, Australia is set to acquire US nuclear-powered submarines in 2032 before co-developing a new class of submarines with the United Kingdom.
The Trump administration is currently reviewing the agreement as part of its broader reassessment of Biden-era policies. However, Australian officials remain confident the deal will move forward.
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“Australia and the United States have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in every major conflict for over a century,” Albanese said in a statement on Sunday, ahead of the summit.
Ahead of Monday’s meeting between the two leaders, Australian officials have emphasised Canberra is paying its way under AUKUS, contributing $2 billion this year to boost production rates at U.S. submarine shipyards, and preparing to maintain U.S. Virginia-class submarines at its Indian Ocean naval base from 2027.
The delay of 10 months in an official meeting since Trump took office has caused some anxiety in Australia as the Pentagon urged Canberra to lift defence spending. The two leaders met briefly on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month.
Australia is willing to sell shares in its planned strategic reserve of critical minerals to allies including Britain, Reuters reported last month, as Western governments scramble to end their reliance on China for rare earths and minor metals.
Top U.S. officials last week condemned Beijing’s expansion of rare earth export controls as a threat to global supply chains. China is the world’s biggest producer of the materials that are vital materials for products ranging from electric vehicles to aircraft engines and military radars.
Resource-rich Australia, wanting to extract and process rare earths, put preferential access to its strategic reserve on the table in US trade negotiations in April.
Michael Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney, told Reuters that the “mood music is good” for the summit, and “the outstanding bilateral issues are not terribly serious.
“The most important thing is for Mr Albanese to establish a cooperative, professional and hopefully warm relationship with the president,” he said.
The United States has a large trade surplus with Australia, which is among the countries with the lowest U.S. tariff.
Australia’s biggest trade partner is China, with exports of iron ore and coal long underpinning its national budget, despite efforts by Albanese’s government to diversify export markets after Beijing’s $20 billion boycott of Australian agriculture and coal from 2020 to 2023.
Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who held talks with Trump’s economic adviser Kevin Hassett on critical minerals, told reporters in Washington on Friday that Canberra wanted to do more with the United States, while maintaining a stable economic relationship with China.
“We know that American companies desperately need critical minerals, and Australia is very well placed to service that need,” he said.
With inputs from agencies
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