Federal election 2025: Peter Dutton says President Trump meeting would be his first foreign trip as PM

Liberal leader Peter Dutton said the US is the first country he would like to visit if elected Prime Minister, putting a meeting with President Donald Trump ahead of the traditional trips taken by new leaders to neighbouring Indonesia.

“My sense would be at this time in our national interest the United States would be very early first visit,” Mr Dutton told foreign affairs analyst Michael Fullilove on Thursday.

But he promised to be a tough negotiator with the US president, who has imposed tariffs on Australian aluminium and steel.

“President Trump’s been elected to put America first,” Mr Dutton said. “I will put Australia first.”

The intention to make a meeting with Mr Trump a higher priority than nearby countries is a sign of the strains in Australia’s relationship with its most important military ally.

A strong supporter of the alliance, Mr Dutton’s promise to increase military spending and his right-wing politics would likely to appeal to the US president.

Breaking history

Mr Dutton’s speech to the Lowy Institute think tank also criticised the government for a weak response to the arrival of Chinese warships in Australian waters last month, while promising to increase trade with Beijing.

Mr Dutton said he would expect to meet other world leaders on his first overseas trip too, and nominated China, Japan and Indonesia, which he said had a “sacrosanct” relationship with Australia.

The last Liberal leader to win an election from opposition, Tony Abbott, made Jakarta his first foreign destination in 2013, a tradition begun by Labor prime minister Paul Keating in 1992.

The practice was followed by Liberal prime minister John Howard in 1996, and the Labor Party’s Kevin Rudd in 2007, who went to a climate conference in Bali ten days after being elected, and Liberal Scott Morrison in 2018.

One of the prime ministers to defy the practice was Julia Gillard, who went to an Australian military base in Afghanistan four months after becoming PM in 2010.

Malcolm Turnbull’s first trip was to New Zealand, but he spent less than 24 hours there. A few weeks later he went to Indonesia, Germany, Turkey, the Philippines and Malaysia.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went to Japan first, but that was two days after he was elected for a pre-arranged meeting of leaders from Australia, India, Japan and the US. Indonesia was his second trip, the following month.

Nuclear protest

Mr Dutton mentioned another country Australian political leaders rarely discuss: the United Arab Emirates, the pro-Western Middle East monarchy where Australia’s military headquarters was based during the Afghanistan war.

He said the relationship with the UAE was “underdone”. Australia is negotiating an agreement with the UAE to increase $10 billion in annual trade, including Australian alumina, meat, oil seeds and degrees.

Two anti-nuclear protestors from a group called Rising Tide infiltrated the speech, posing as journalists. As they were dragged out by Mr Dutton’s security guards, one said: “Mr Dutton, why are you lying to the Australian people about the cost of nuclear?”

Other members of the group disrupted a press conference in northern Sydney by Angus Taylor, the shadow treasurer, and Jane Hume, the shadow finance minister.

The Coalition estimates its plan to build seven government-owned nuclear power plants would cost $263 billion less than the government’s subsidies of wind and solar power.

Mr Fullilove joked the speech was “action packed”. An election is due by the end of May.