Media hyperventilating over a non-event not happening, i.e. Albanese sitting down with Trump, misses the point, America believes it already owns us. Michael Pascoe fears it is right.
Kids outside a hotel hoping for a glimpse of Taylor Swift show more restraint than the local commentariat has over what’s been painted as the Holy Grail of Australian foreign policy – Albanese sitting down for a photo op with Trump.
The verbiage wasted on speculation, anticipation, and now fulmination over a non-event not happening misses the reality of America’s relationship with Australia: we’re taken for granted.
Washington assumes with good reason that little ol’ Australia will do whatever the US wants it to do. During the reign of the Toddler King, that’s not the worst position to be in.
There was a reason Australia didn’t feature in Trump 2.0’s early foreign policy rants about acquiring Greenland and making Canada the 51st state – we were already there, running a trade deficit, kissing arse, providing military bases, keep our mouths shut about the lunacy.
Heck, we started paying protection money for phantom submarines before Trump even thought of travelling the world with a collection bag open for grift.
The USA taking Australia for granted isn’t new. Washington has been encouraged to think we are the most loyal of all its vassals. As Trump might say: “Nobody works harder at being nice to America than Australians do. Of course, they could do more, but they’re doing pretty good.”
While MSM has swallowed the Opposition’s line about the imperative of The Meeting, it ignores how well we do without one.
There’s no upside to Albo spending more than moments with the Trumpster, only downside if the febrile President doesn’t like the way the Prime Minister fakes a smile or remembers Albo replaced a genuine MAGA fanboy.
Other than the submarines we are better off without, we don’t want any more from the Trump gang than to be overlooked, to be taken for granted, to be thought happily subservient so that we maintain our least-unfavoured nation status and the lobbying of American multinationals fails to buy action.
Best if the President is not goaded into thinking about us at all.
Which he mostly has not, unless he’s pushed to by someone asking questions. Aside from The Phone Call with Malcolm Turnbull, being duchessed by Anthony Pratt and happily accepting Scott Morrison’s adoration as part of the evangelical schtick, Australia didn’t feature for Trump 1.0.
A small measure of how irrelevant Australia was to Trump, he set a record for leaving the US Ambassador’s Canberra residence empty. It was two years and 173 days before a loyal Republican lawyer took up the gig.
That said, it took the Biden administration more than a year to give the job to Caroline Kennedy. See, they can all take Australia for granted.
There’s no sign of a replacement for Ms Kennedy yet either. Why bother putting someone on the payroll when Australians already know their place?
It could be much worse. Trump could have repatriated the Australian-born “MAGA influencer” Nick Adams instead of inflicting him on Malaysia.
Keep sending money. Keep being folksy. Don’t criticise. Lay low. Relations with the US don’t get any better than that.
Michael Pascoe is an independent journalist and commentator with five decades of experience here and abroad in print, broadcast and online journalism. His book, The Summertime of Our Dreams, is published by Ultimo Press.