SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Washington: Australian packaging magnate Anthony Pratt, whom Donald Trump once branded a “red-haired weirdo”, has pledged to invest billions in American manufacturing as he visits the US president at the White House.
Pratt said the planned $US5 billion ($7.82 billion) investment would create 5000 manufacturing jobs across the US in the rust-belt states of Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and in Arizona in the southwest.
Then-president Donald Trump and Anthony Pratt during the official opening of Pratt Industries’ Wapakoneta recycling and paper plant in Ohio in 2019.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“To make America great again we need to make in America again,” he said. “That’s why I’m proud to support the president’s call to reindustrialise America and again make the US the manufacturing powerhouse of the world”.
The Visy and Pratt Industries chairman is among several business leaders due to attend an event with Trump at the White House on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) as the president marks the first 100 days of his second term.
Pratt is a permanent US resident and has based himself in New York since last year. Pratt Industries has 70 US factories making recycled paper and cardboard boxes for customers such as Walmart, Home Depot and the US Postal Service.
The 65-year-old, originally from Melbourne, has cultivated a relationship with the president and became a member of his Mar-a-lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Anthony Pratt and sister Heloise Pratt in 2023 at the Met Gala in New York.Credit: Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
As part of the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents, it was claimed that Trump shared potentially classified information about America’s nuclear submarine fleet with Pratt during conversations at Mar-a-lago in April 2021.
The information reportedly included the number of nuclear warheads carried by the boats and how close they could get to Russian counterparts without detection. When the claims were published in 2023, Trump called it “fake news” and said he never discussed submarines with “a red-haired weirdo from Australia”.
Reporting by this masthead and 60 Minutes subsequently revealed a history of Trump disclosing information to Pratt, including boasting in 2019 about having just bombed Iraq before the operation was publicised.
“He’s outrageous,” Pratt said of Trump on secret tapes obtained by this masthead. “He just says whatever the f— he wants, and he loves to shock people.”
In 2019, while president, Trump attended the opening of a Pratt paper mill in Ohio along with then Australian prime minister Scott Morrison. “Anthony is one of the most successful men in the world – perhaps Australia’s most successful man,” Trump said at the time.
Pratt’s White House visit comes as new data showed the US economy contracted 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2025, primarily caused by a sharp increase in imports as businesses rushed to get ahead of Trump’s tariffs. Imports detract from growth in the way the US Commerce Department calculates gross domestic product.
Consumer spending grew by 1.8 per cent, though that was markedly down from the 2024 average of 3.4 per cent.
Spending by foreigners travelling in the US for business, leisure and education also plunged. “This presumably reflects increased hostility by many foreigners to the US, as well as fear of harassment by ICE officers,” said the Centre for Economic and Policy Research.
The White House blamed predecessor Joe Biden for GDP going backwards. “It’s no surprise the leftovers of Biden’s economic disaster have been a drag on economic growth,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
“But the underlying numbers tell the real story of the strong momentum President Trump is delivering. Robust core GDP, the highest gross domestic investment in four years, job growth, and trillions of dollars in new investments secured by President Trump are fuelling an economic boom.”
