Albanese Sold Us Out Down Stream to the Mad King

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has finally met US president Donald Trump nine months into the latter’s term. The antipodean leader sought to resecure US approval on the elusive AUKUS agreement, while the mad king of Mar-a-Lago was after critical minerals and rare earth still under the ground on this continent. And while the latter sealed the deal, our PM’s success is less certain.

As Albanese sat beside Trump before a throng of Australian and American reporters this week to seal the rare earth deal and revive AUKUS, he appeared as if the meeting couldn’t finish fast enough. The Australian PM smiled nervously in respect of the US president’s borderline chatter and frowned in anxious anticipation every time a journalist from his homeland was about to ask Trump a question.

This was a meeting between an Australian PM and US president like no other before it, as the sense was that if anything upset Trump the deal could breakdown on live TV, and another difference on the past was that the current Australian PM appeared to be nakedly kowtowing to the authoritarian US ruler, as he signed over local assets to appease Trump and ultimately, make himself look good.

The US$13 billion “landmark critical minerals framework” involves an upfront $3 billion investment over the next 6 months, along with the US military building a refinery for gallium, a critical mineral, on Noongar land south of the Western Australian capital of Perth, and the PM too signed over superannuation funds to the US, so that the investment over there will rise to $1.44 trillion by 2035.

In exchange for our nation providing the US with rare earths, at a time when China has tightened export controls on its own supply, Albanese secured a recommitment to the AUKUS arrangement involving US supply of three to five Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines (SSN) to Australia early next decade. Yet, Trump’s AUKUS promises are about as permanent as his temperament.

Critical minerals and rare earth

Since his 20 January 2025 inauguration, Trump has had many meetings with global heads of state, and a precedent has been set whereby he and senior US cabinet members might pick holes in or humiliate a foreign leader on camera. Albanese had been knocked back twice from prior official meetings and each of these indignities from the White House is understood to be purposeful.

During the 21 October press conference, Trump explained that the purpose of the meeting was for him and Albanese to sign a $13 billion critical minerals and rare earth deal, which involves Australia supplying the US with these minerals, which are vital for technologies, and most importantly currently, in terms of weapons manufacturing and artificial intelligence (AI) tech.

China has the largest deposits of these minerals and just a fortnight before the US-Australian deal was cut, Chinese president Xi Jinping tightened export controls on them. Beijing now stipulates that other nations must specify their intended use of these minerals, of which China too processes so it can be utilised in technologies, and it makes clear it’s not handing them over for use in weapons.

Washington has been eyeing off First Nations critical minerals ever since our PM agreed to allow the US to designate this country as a domestic source in US law for military purposes in 2023, effectively streamlining such exports with the US having priority dibs, along with a view to commence processing such minerals here, to undercut China’s domination in supply of the finished product.

The deal invokes the April 2025 established Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve plan, and as Albanese revealed during the press conference, it is also about A Future Made in Australia, which is a policy position that involves “not just digging things up and exporting them” as in the past, but now “processing critical minerals”, just like China, and primarily, for United States use it would seem.

Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe remarked on the day of the deal that “Albanese is trading stolen goods from stolen land with Trump in this minerals deal, much of it to fuel the US war machine.” The Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung politician added that it was “another Labor deal for their mining mates that will destroy Country”.

Those illusive subs

The briefing notes to the minerals deal contain no mention of AUKUS, the September 2021 agreement between the US, the UK and Australia, which involves the US supply of three to five Virginia class submarines to this country early next decade. The Trump administration placed the plan under review in June, and it was only at this recent meeting that it was revealed to be back on.

About five minutes into the meeting, Trump called on US navy secretary John Phelan to speak on the progress of the AUKUS deal and he stressed that the facility being built in Western Australia for the US to park its own SSN in, is “critical and very important” to the US “ability to project power in the Indo Pacific”, while as for the “ambiguity that was in the prior agreement” that is being improved.

“We do actually have a lot of submarines. We have the best submarines anywhere in the world, and a few more currently under construction. And now we’re starting. We have it all set with Anthony,” Trump said in response to a question. “We’ve worked on this long and hard, and we’re starting that process right now, and I think it’s really moving along very rapidly, very well.”

These assertions from the mad king fail to ring true, however, as it’s understood that the US is 17 SSN behind in securing its goal of a fleet of 66 Virigina class submarines. Australia will not be supplied any until the US has satisfied its own needs, and at present, the US is budgeting for and constructing 1.3 subs a year, while it would need to produce 2.3 to then supply this country any attack SSN.

As Phelan noted, the major concern for the US in all of this is the establishment of US Submarine Rotational Force – West, which is a proposed joint US-UK SSN presence on Noongar land on WA’s Meandup-Garden Island by 2027. The US has already produced research on whether this presence would mean Australian-owned nuclear-powered submarines then become superfluous.

So, US president Trump’s this week assertion before the cameras that the supply of Virigina class SSN was full steam ahead for the early 2030s served as no guarantee, except as far as it was going to secure the critical minerals deal on the day.

Making a splash with the taxpayer purse

The rare earth deal in exchange for some submarines, which many consider no more than a carrot dangled on a stick at this stage, has been cut at a moment when the authoritarian Trump government is at war with its domestic population, has declared it no longer follows the international rules of engagement at war, and it has been conducting extrajudicial murders in the Caribbean.

The deal further involves Australia agreeing to purchase billions in US weaponry, along with handing over $2 billion this year to invest in the US submarine building capacity regardless of whether this nation gets to buy any Virginia class SSN in the end. This country will further invest in US integrated air and missile defence capabilities, and Australia is manufacturing munitions for the US.

But the most disturbing aspect to the deal revealed in the wake of Trump’s megalomania and Albanese’s sycophantry, has been that the Australian PM without consultation has assured that local “superannuation funds will increase investments in the United States to $1.44 trillion by 2035”, which is a $1 trillion increase, and this “unprecedented investment” will create thousands of US jobs.

So, Albanese, whose time in office is limited, is currently committing trillions of dollars from the Australian constituency’s funds to the leader of a nation who has its eyes set on dismantling US democracy, along with demonising and disappearing undisclosed immigrants, and Trump is also about to launch an illegal war on Venezuela to steal that nation’s significant oil reserves.

The Australian public never considered that the boy from Marrickville would be a match for the mad king from Mar-a-Lago. However, the constiuency didn’t expect Albanese to give away all its money simply to placate Trump, and hopefully, so he could make it through the half hour White House presser without getting egg on his face.