How Scott Morrison’s book launch portends Australia-US diplomacy under Trump

It’s a striking display of bipartisanship at the new headquarters of the Australian Embassy in Washington.

Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison launched the Books About God He was speaking alongside two key members of Donald Trump’s first administration – former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former senior adviser Kellyanne Conway.

Sitting in the front row was Vice President Mike Pence, once a loyal Trump operative who had defied him. Boss orders overturn of 2020 election results And now refuses to support his return to the White House.

Behind the podium are former Labor Prime Minister and current US Ambassador Kevin RuddHe has been fiercely critical of Morrison’s leadership, accusing him of “gaslighting” Australians during the pandemic and “failing diplomacy” over the AUKUS submarine deal.

Years later, political differences were put aside ahead of a presidential election that could test the US-Australia alliance.

“Only Scott Morrison could bring together such a broad spectrum of believers,” Rudd joked as he promoted his new book before a crowd of conservative politicians and aides, think tank members and religious leaders.

While last month’s embassy event may have raised some eyebrows, it was also a masterclass in winning friends and influencing those around Trump ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Since arriving in Washington, Rudd and his team have been working overtime to reach out to Republicans who could be part of a future Trump administration, from vice presidential candidates like Senators Tim Scott and Marco Rubio to potential Cabinet picks like former trade representative Robert Lighthizer and former national security adviser Robert O’Brien.

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The energetic ambassador has also visited the heartland of Republican donors in Utah, hobnobbed with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and even traveled across America’s Bible Belt last week to promote Australia’s interests.

With Trump and Biden tied in most opinion polls, last month’s book launch was just a necessary extension of Australia’s outreach efforts. The embassy’s guest list that night numbered more than 400 people — almost all of whom could potentially get a job in a future Trump administration.

Such efforts are now underway elsewhere in Washington, as lobbyists, consultants and nonpartisan groups across the United States prepare for the possibility of Trump 2.0 — and what it would mean for Australia’s national security, economy and democracy.

In the Washington office of The Asia Group, Arthur Sinodinos, a former U.S. ambassador and current chairman of the strategic consultancy’s Australian business, is closely monitoring the key challenges the United States might face if Trump is re-elected as president, from the knock-on effects of a significant expansion of tariffs on China to AUKUS Military Agreement.

Bondi Partners, a consultancy founded by another former ambassador, Joe Hockey, who used golf diplomacy to curry favor with Trump while in office, has a detailed “mud map” of all the people who could have an impact on the former president’s reelection. The group has good relationships with many of them.

In fact, some of Trump’s former aides are also working for the consulting firm, such as Trump’s former chief deputy chief of staff, Emma Doyle, who is now Bondi’s managing director, and former acting CEO and key adviser Mick Mulvaney.

Morrison holds two jobs in the private U.S. defense sector alongside key Trump allies who could end up in his future cabinet.

The first was with American Global Strategies, a boutique consulting firm founded by Robert O’Brien, where Morrison is currently a non-executive vice president; the second was with AUKUS Investors Dyne MaritimeServes as strategic advisor to Pompeo.

“Any time there’s a chance of a change in administration, it’s important to have a plan in place to communicate the value of the relationship — and to do it early and often,” said Meredith Miller, a former State Department official who is now a partner at Albright Stonebridge Group.

“So it makes sense that Australia is really trying to sell the value of the US-Australia alliance to senior people around Trump – and to Trump himself – rather than just resting on its laurels in the first term.”

But what exactly would a second term bring, and how should we manage this relationship? After all, Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnershippulling the United States out Paris Agreement climate change, and Rebuked then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull The refugee settlement agreement reached by the Obama administration.

This time, among other things, he plans to impose additional tariffs on imports from all countries, weaken NATO, abandon Ukraine, and expand presidential power over every branch of the federal government.

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Asked how Australia should approach relations with Washington if Trump wins, Doyle, who served as Trump’s legal adviser for two years and later worked in first lady Melania Trump’s office, referred to recent comments by outgoing Dutch Prime Minister and incoming NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

Earlier this year, at the Munich Security Conference, Rutte told European leaders that instead of “complaining and grumbling” about Trump, we should “work with Trump.”

“I think statements like this are very helpful to a foreign leader. As long as it’s from a perspective of mutual respect, it’s very helpful to him,” Doyle said.

She added: “Even being on the left is not necessarily as bad for Donald Trump as people think.”

“I mean, he was a lifelong Democrat, he was a New Yorker, Hillary Clinton was at at least one of his weddings. For him, it was more about: Do I like this person? Do we get along? What does he say about me?”

Whether Trump can forgive his critics is crucial for Australia – not least because of past criticism from Rudd, who described the firebrand Republican as Think “crazy”He is a “traitor to the West” and “the most destructive president in history.”

The comments were made years ago when Rudd was working as an “independent think tank” at the Asia Society in New York. However, they came back to haunt Trump in March when Nigel Farage, the former leader of the Brexit Party, mentioned them to him in an interview with GB News, a right-wing British media outlet.

“If that’s the case, he won’t be there for long.” Trump responds“I don’t know much about him. I heard he’s kind of nasty. I heard he’s not the brightest guy. But I don’t know much about him. But if he’s hostile, he won’t be there long.”

The condemnation caused an uproar in Canberra as speculation grew. How long can Kevin Rudd keep his job?and at the U.S. Embassy’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., the calls began to heat up — including from Republicans trying to reassure the team that Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric didn’t have to be seen as a serious threat.

Three months later, Rudd has still not made any formal contact with Trump or his campaign.

Morrison, on the other hand, was able to Squeeze in time for private meetings The former president was on trial in Manhattan Fraudulent hush money payments Porn star Stormy Daniels.

He later tweeted a photo of himself standing next to Republicans inside the golden fence of Trump Tower and said it was “good to see him, especially considering the fierce attacks he has received in the United States.”

Rumors soon began to circulate.

“Is this a meeting between future Ambassador Morrison and President Trump who is about to be re-elected?” Ask title In the Lowy Institute’s international journal, Interpreter.

Morrison said Rudd was not mentioned during the talks, which focused instead on Australia’s war of independence – he Biden and then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced 2021 — and China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific and threats to Taiwan.

“It was a great opportunity for me, as the author of AUKUS, to experience first-hand that ‘this is what AUKUS is designed to do, it’s completely consistent with these things’.” He told the newspaperAnd noted that Trump gave the agreement a “warm welcome.”

“Trump is often accused of being an isolationist, but he just doesn’t like America being lied to, and we can’t be accused of that.”

Across the US, there is a vast network of think tanks and other nonpartisan groups focusing on Trump 2.0 policies while strengthening ties between Australia and the US, including the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia (AmCham), and the New York-based American Australia Institute, led by former US Ambassador to Australia John Berry.

April Palmerlee, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said her nonpartisan group has spent a lot of time engaging with Republicans at all levels of government.

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“I believe that even though the US, Australia and the UK are all heading for elections in the next 12 months, the AUKUS partnership will remain a core focus for all three countries,” she said.

Palmeri also expects Australia to focus on higher tariffs, an exit from the World Trade Organization and the end of the Indo-Pacific economic framework, which Australia has been negotiating with Biden and other Asian countries.

“It is incumbent on the prime minister to personally make the case to Trump about tariffs, cooperation on critical minerals and defence industrial integration, and to do so through a personal relationship with Trump – challenging as that may be,” said Charles Edel, Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Then there is the presidential transition itself, part of which is outlined in a 920-page Heritage Foundation blueprint called Project 2025, The report draws on opinions from about 100 conservative organizations and a group of former Trump administration officials.

The plan, which took two years to develop, seeks an unprecedented expansion of presidential power and politicizes the federal government, including the potential replacement of thousands of current civil servants with political loyalists.

But it also raises questions for Australia, whose relationship with the United States is built on a range of shared values, including democracy.

As some Washington observers are now asking: If that unravels under Trump 2.0, where will we be?

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