SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Washington: United States President Donald Trump has praised Prime Minister Anthony Albanese following his re-election but ducked questions about whether he was partly responsible for the Coalition’s electoral rout.
“Albanese I’m very friendly with,” Trump told this masthead at the White House on Sunday evening local time (Monday morning AEST). “I don’t know anything about the election other than the man that won, he’s very good.”
President Donald Trump returns to the White House on Sunday.Credit: AP
Asked about Albanese’s description of Trump’s tariffs as “not the act of a friend”, and whether they would soon speak again about trade, Trump said: “I can only say that he’s been very, very nice to me, very respectful to me.
“I have no idea who the other person is that ran against him, and, you know, we [Albanese and I] have had a very good relationship.”
He said he did not know whether he had an impact on the election result. Some analysts have suggested the Coalition’s declining popularity could be partly attributed to an association with the US president and his conservative policies.
Trump made the comments as he disembarked his Marine One helicopter at the White House after returning from his weekend home in Florida.
He gave no indication of whether he would speak to Albanese to congratulate him on his win, though that is customary.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Bar Italia, in the Sydney suburb of Leichhardt, on Sunday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Albanese’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether a call has been scheduled.
Trump has not, as yet, posted a message of congratulations to Albanese from his TruthSocial account. World leaders who have offered their congratulations on social media include British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“In an increasingly divided world, Canada and Australia are close partners and the most reliable of friends,” Carney wrote. “We have the opportunity to build on that relationship and our shared values to the benefit of both our nations, and I look forward to it.”
Carney, who took over from Justin Trudeau, won a fourth term for his centre-left Liberal Party despite the party being well behind in the polls months earlier, when under Trudeau. That win was credited in large part to Canadians preferring Carney over his conservative opponent to stand up to Trump’s tariffs and threats.
One of Albanese’s key foreign affairs tasks will be to restart trade talks with Washington after the imposition of 10 per cent tariffs on Australian goods, the lowest, “universal” tariff rate Trump gave to any country, but one which Albanese said had no basis in logic.
Australia is one of the few countries with which the US historically enjoys a trade surplus, although there was a deficit in the early months of this year. Negotiations were effectively on hold during the election campaign and caretaker period.
Albanese is expected to attend a meeting of the G7 in Canada next month as an invited guest, and could meet Trump there or in Washington.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a statement on X after Albanese’s victory.
“Congratulations to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on his victory in Australia’s federal election. Australia is a valued US friend and a close partner,” he wrote.
“We look forward to continuing to promote freedom and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the world.”
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
