Anthony Albanese has controlled the first week of the federal election campaign, shaping events and the political narrative rather than allowing them to shape him.
That was always bound to change at 7am on Thursday, when Donald Trump announced a global trade strike widely predicted to spare not even the United States’ closest friends and allies.
Journalists following Albanese’s campaign huddled around phones broadcasting the White House press conference, hanging out for any mention of Australia, squinting at Trump’s country-by-country tariff chart, trying to decipher what it meant.
It wasn’t just the travelling media.
Albanese; the foreign minister, Penny Wong; and trade minister, Don Farrell, were also digesting the announcement in real time.
At his own press conference just an hour later, Albanese was asked if the 10% tariff assigned to Australia applied to all exports.
“It is our understanding that it will be across the board,” Albanese said – hedging with the phrase “our understanding” four more times in one answer alone.
And what about beef? Was it banned, as Trump appeared to suggest, and was Australia forewarned it might be an option?
Albanese couldn’t say, at least not immediately and definitively.
“We will, of course, seek further clarity about all of the decisions that are made,” he said, noting beef was raised in talks in negotiations with the Trump administration.
US officials later confirmed to Australia that beef was not banned.
While it wasn’t privy to exactly what would be announced on Thursday morning, the government was expecting, and prepared for, Australia to be swept in Trump’s “liberation day” assault.
In the weeks after failing to secure an exemption to 25% duties on steel and aluminium exports, the Albanese government grew increasingly pessimistic about its chances of securing carveouts from Trump’s “retaliatory tariffs”.
It accepted that even though the US enjoys a long-running trade surplus with Australia – that Trump really has nothing to retaliate against – the president could not be persuaded to soften his aggressive America-first agenda, even for an old and trusted friend.
This hard-headed realism gave Albanese time to formulate a response, both in rhetoric and policy.
Accused so often of flat-footedness in times of emergency, the prime minister was determined not to be caught short this time.
Fronting reporters inside the Commonwealth Parliament Offices in Melbourne’s CBD on Thursday, Albanese said the tariffs, while not unexpected, were “totally unwarranted”.
“The [US] administration’s tariffs have no basis in logic – and they go against the basis of our two nations’ partnership,” he said, reading calmly and directly from a pre-prepared statement.
“This is not the act of a friend.”
Albanese said the government would not retaliate with its own tariffs on the US. But, in a thinly veiled message to Washington, he warned of consequences in the form of how Australians viewed our relationship with America.
The government was also armed with an immediate five-point policy response, which included a pledge to strengthen anti-dumping laws to protect Australian steel and aluminium, $50m for affected industries, a new $1bn zero-interest loan program for exporters, and an Australia-first focus for commonwealth procurement.
It is also creating a new scheme to underwrite production and supply of critical minerals, a natural resource sought after by Washington and a bargaining chip shaping up as Australia’s best hope for securing exemptions down the track.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, dialled into Sydney 2GB just prior to Albanese’s press conference in an attempt to frame the tariffs as the failure of the prime minister, and of his hand-picked ambassador in Washington, Kevin Rudd.
“So there has been the significant failing, and we need to be strong and to stand up for our country’s interests,” Dutton said, criticising Albanese for not securing a phone call with Trump ahead of Thursday’s announcement.
At a later press conference, Dutton also called out Trump and his team, saying the Australian relationship “hasn’t been treated with respect”.
But while continuing his criticisms of Albanese for not obtaining a deal (even as Australia got off the lightest of any country, far better than European and Asian allies), Dutton couldn’t immediately say much about what he’d do on day one to change Trump’s mind.
Just one thing: scaling up defence industry and manufacturing, to “contribute” to the American war machine. Dutton later denied this would be “kowtowing” to the US but his message was there: Australia, already contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to the American manufacturing line – to help them build more submarines so they can sell us some of their secondhand ones under Aukus – might be keen to fire up our factories for Trump too.
The opposition leader trod a fine line – trying to combine earlier claims he’d have more in common with Trump with new lines that he’d be willing to “fight” the US president, and also placate a base who want him to follow Trump’s line in waging war on “woke” and the public service.
Labor is increasingly tying Dutton’s “government efficiency” agenda to that of the US president and his cutter-in-chief, Elon Musk. It’s a danger for the opposition leader if the comparison, which he has until recently stoked or outright encouraged, starts to stick right as Trump’s popularity nosedives here.
Dutton’s attack was predictable; the opportunity to paint Albanese as weak and Rudd ineffective was too good to pass up. But it was politically dangerous, giving Labor a chance – which Albanese and Wong gratefully accepted – to cast Dutton as siding with Trump, not Australia.
Of all the press conferences held this election, one staged on a windy, overcast afternoon in the White House Rose Garden was bound to be among the most consequential.
Such an act of hostility from an ally in the midst of a campaign is unprecedented.
So too is Donald Trump.
Albanese is determined to shape both in his favour.