Albanese says Trump's policies create 'potential benefits' for Australia
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The news: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declared that some of Donald Trump's policies could be beneficial for Australia, suggesting that scrapping Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act would provide more opportunities for Australia to export its clean energy and critical minerals.
The context: World leaders, including Albanese, are gathering in Peru and Brazil over the next week for the APEC and G20 summits, where the election of Trump and the prospect of the incoming US President imposing widespread tariffs is top of the agenda.
Trump is also likely to scrap many measures under Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which pulled capital out of countries including Australia by spending billions of dollars in grants and loans to spur financing and deployment of new clean energy projects in the US. Australia was forced to respond to Biden's move with its own policy, the Future Made in Australia Act, which includes billions of dollars in tax breaks for critical minerals and green hydrogen.
Speaking to reporters from the Australian embassy in Lima, Peru, Albanese said that there were “potential benefits” from a change in US policy. He said the Inflation Reduction Act saw “considerable capital flowing to the United States” and if those incentives were scrapped that could provide new opportunities for Australia in clean energy and critical minerals.
Earlier Albanese met with Prabowo Subianto where the new Indonesian President said there needed to be “some sort of management with the Chinese to de-escalate and lower the temperature”, in an apparent reference to tensions in the South China Sea.
Albanese said Prabowo has visited both Beijing and Washington over the past week and that he, like other leaders in the region, wanted to “ensure there is peace, stability and security there, and that there is engagement and dialogue to make sure there aren’t any incidents that can escalate quickly”.
He would not comment on whether Australia’s ambassador Kevin Rudd needed to be moved on over past comments he made about Trump. Albanese said the former Prime Minister was “doing a good job, and that’s been recognised across the political spectrum in Australia by people from Tony Abbott to Malcolm Turnbull to Peter Dutton”.
Following Opposition calls for him to fly to Florida to meet with Trump following the G20 in Rio de Janeiro, Albanese said intended to be in Parliament next Thursday but that he had a “very constructive beginning” to his relationship with Trump and that he would “have a meeting with President Trump when it is organised”.
What they said: “Given Australia’s position in the world and the resources that we have, there are potential benefits if there are changes in US policy,” Albanese said.
“The Inflation Reduction Act, for example, is seeing considerable capital flowing to the United States. If those incentives aren’t there, then that has implications for the nature of the global economy.
“We have all of the resources under the ground that will drive the global economy in the 21st century – copper, vanadium, cobalt, lithium etc. We have a great opportunity to produce green hydrogen. We have the best solar resources in the world.”
“Of course President Trump won’t be sworn in until January 20, but the world is giving consideration of course to the changes that will occur.
“We will wait and see what the impact is. I don’t want to preempt action for a government that isn’t in place yet.
“Agencies in Australia, and I’m sure around the world, looked at what the policies of the Democrats and the Republicans prior to the election. Because the United States represents a quarter of the global economy, the impact that they have is disproportionate.”
The source: Prime Minister's press conference, Capital Brief
