‘Australia’s interests’: Urgent plea to Albo

Anthony Albanese should meet with Donald Trump sooner rather than later “to ensure Australia is as well positioned as possible”, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham says.

Mr Trump’s historic White House win has sent shockwaves across the globe, with world leaders wondering what a second Trump presidency could mean for international trade and security.

Amid concern over Mr Trump’s plan to slap blanket tariffs on foreign imports, Senator Birmingham said on Tuesday the Prime Minister should meet with the US President-elect as soon as possible.

“Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump have never met,” he told Sky News.

“Keir Starmer, the UK’s Prime Minister, seized the initiative a couple of months ago and while he was in the US along with Narendra Modi from India, they went and saw Donald Trump as a candidate and made sure they were forging those relations.

“There’s an opportunity here for Anthony Albanese to seek that meeting, to do so early, and it would clearly be in Australia’s interest for him to show that initiative and that drive.

“The Albanese government should be doing all it can to try to get Anthony Albanese in the door for an early meeting with Donald Trump.”

The Coalition frontbencher’s call came a day after Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned that Australia “wouldn’t be immune” from trade tensions sparked by Mr Trump’s geo-economic ideas.

The incoming US president has said he would slap blanket tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all foreign imports in a bid to usher in a new age of American manufacturing.

He has also said he would impose a levy of up to 100 per cent on goods from China, which is considered the main threat to Western economic and military dominance.

Senator Birmingham said a test of how well Australia was positioned to work with a Trump White House was “whether our economy gets the same type of treatment under the second Trump administration that it did under the first administration when there was a Coalition government in Australia”.

“Our government was able to secure exemptions for Australia from Trump tariffs,” he said.

“Can Labor do the same? That is a very early but significant test for them.”

The US is among Australia’s closest allies, with deep trade and security ties spanning decades.

Senior government ministers have stressed that bilateral relationship runs deeper than governments of the day.