LATIKA M BOURKE: Anthony Albanese’s long-awaited Trump meeting delivers in style and subtance

Anthony Albanese’s date with Donald Trump went so well, that he floated the idea of using their first get-together in his 2028 election ads.

The Australian Prime Minister basked in the US President’s flattery as he blitzed his first trip to the White House since Mr Trump was elected, almost a year ago.

The trip was delayed and long-awaited but delivered both in substance, style and fireworks. Of those, there were plenty.

Mr Trump roasted Kevin Rudd in a humiliating exchange, forcing the ambassador to apologise in person for once calling him the most destructive president in history among other criticisms.

He turned his aim on two Australian journalists, telling the Sydney Morning Herald’s Washington correspondent Michael Koziol that he was “nasty” and The Nightly that a question on Ukraine was ill-informed.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mr Trump said when asked why he didn’t enable Ukraine to finish the war tomorrow.

But when it came to his assessment of the Australia-US Alliance and his ability to work with the left-leaning Australian Prime Minister, things could not have gone any better. The visit was an unmitigated success.

Mr Trump praised the alliance, rightly, as one that was steadfast and constant and had never caused the US any doubts.

The Australian side made much of the fact that Mr Albanese was seated not in the Oval Office but beside Mr Trump in the Cabinet Room for the press conference, attended by the administration’s most senior figures, including US Secretary for War Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice-President JD Vance, and the Secretary of the Navy John Phelan.

Before entering the Cabinet Room, Mr Trump welcomed Mr Albanese to the White House, told the media his message to the Australian people was that “we love them,” and gave the Australian leader a tour of the Oval Office and the building works he is carrying out.

Once seated, they got to business signing a massive critical minerals deal aimed at countering Chinese dominance and supporting Australian mining and processing.

The President strongly backed AUKUS saying said it should be accelerated and even appeared to give Labor a free pass on raising defence spending.

“I’d always like more but they have to do what they have to do you know, you can only do so much,” he said.

He went on to praise the recent promised investments Labor has made in the Henderson shipyards in WA near HMAS Stirling from where the AUKUS submarines will dock and base, saying they were complex and costly.

In doing so, he effectively put Mr Hegseth and the Pentagon’s Elbridge Colby, who have been openly demanding that Australia raise their spending to NATO levels of 3.5 per cent, back into their boxes.

Mr Albanese beamed, grinned and laughed as he was constantly flattered by Mr Trump as “highly respected,” “very popular” and someone who had done a “fantastic job” as prime minister and a “great leader.”

Mr Trump frequently patted Mr Albanese, whom he also called a friend.

The Labor leader returned the warmth, praising Mr Trump’s gilded additions to the Oval Office.

“Thanks for showing us around the improved Oval Office and for what you’re doing around here as well,” Mr Albanese said.

He said Mr Trump’s Middle East peace deal was an “extraordinary achievement.”

The omens for a good trip were positive from the start. Mr Albanese was invited to stay at Blair House, the residence across the road from the White House. It’s offered to visiting world leaders at the White House’s discretion.

“It’s a great honour to be able to stay there. We are great friends and we are great allies,” Mr Albanese said.

He released a photo of the flowers that were waiting for him upon his arrival late on Sunday night and the note from the President and First Lady Melania Trump who said they were “delighted” to host the Australian leader.

But the trip was hugely substantial and on all the key issues that mattered to Australia.

First up was securing AUKUS which the Pentagon began reviewing earlier this year. Mr Trump made his first comments on the deal to sell Australia nuclear-powered submarines and said it was one he would honour, and possibly accelerate.

It is vindication of the view put forward by Michael Green at the United States Studies Centre at Sydney University who predicted this outcome immediately after Trump’s re-election.

“We are doing that, we have them moving very, very quickly,” Mr Trump said, when asked if might expedite the sale of submarines to Australia.

The jewel of the meeting was the $8.5 billion critical minerals deal that is aimed at pouring US investment into Australia’s mining sector to grow Australian jobs and create a secure supply chain of the essential ingredients that go into making advanced weapons and everyday tech goods.

If there were two outstanding issues of concern, one was trade tariffs which Mr Trump gave no indication he would consider removing.

“Australia pays among the lowest tariffs,” he said.

The other was the Quad, which was not raised by either leader or the media.

The status of the annual Quad Leader’s Summit remains pending. It is India’s turn to host the gathering of the US, Australian and Japanese leaders but India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in a dispute with Mr Trump over India’s purchases of Russian oil and the US’s subsequent trade tariffs.

But any suggestions before the visit that Mr Albanese, who campaigned heavily on anti-Trumpian themes to win his 94-seat majority, would have a difficult relationship with the US leader as a result, have been well and truly dispelled.

Mr Albanese had few words today as is customary for world leaders who are forced to take part in the President’s marathon press encounters, but his grin said it all. By the end he was jubilant, joking that he would use Trump’s endorsement on his next campaign literature.

“They really have a great Prime Minister,” Mr Trump told the media.

“I’ll use it in my ads in ‘28,” Mr Albanese said, the same year he invited Mr Trump to visit Australia.

He might only be half-joking.