Dutton declares he will ‘firmly’ stand up to Trump if elected
Asked where he would travel first as prime minister, Dutton said that the US is Australia’s “most important military partner, and there is a lot of repair work to do in that relationship”.
While relationships with Indonesia, Japan and China are also important, Dutton said that establishing a personal connection with Trump would be his most important foreign policy priority.
Indicating that Rudd’s days as Australian ambassador in Washington could be numbered under a Coalition government, Morrison said the former prime minister seems to be “persona non grata” with the Trump administration.
Dutton said he would seek to work with Trump in a “respectful” way but that he would not avoid criticising the president when required.
“President Trump’s been elected to put America first,” he said.
“My job is to put Australia first, and I will stand up firmly against President Trump or anyone else in our country’s best interests.”
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Dutton said he would call for Trump to restore funding to important US aid projects in the Pacific and South-East Asia that have been cut by his administration under an effort led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
“I don’t agree with some of the funding that has been withdrawn, and I think it is detrimental to the collective interests in the region and I hope there can be a discussion between our governments about a sensible way forward,” he said.
Responding to a report in this masthead that American pharma giants have called on the Trump administration to impose tariffs on Australia because of its subsidised medicines, Dutton said the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) would “continue to be sacrosanct under any trade agreements negotiated by a Dutton Coalition government”.
“I want the Australian people to know that I will stand up and defend the PBS, which is the envy of the world, against any attempt to undermine its integrity, including by major pharmaceutical companies,” he said.
Dutton said calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be one of his “first orders of business” if elected, saying the Albanese government’s efforts to distance itself from Israel was one of its “most egregious foreign policy failures”.
“Israel will be able to count on our support again in the United Nations,” Dutton said, as he insisted UNRWA would “no longer receive $1 of funding from the government”.
UNRWA, which provides aid in the Palestinian territories, fired nine employees from Gaza last year over suspicions they had been involved in the October 7 attacks in Israel.
Dutton declared he would be able to handle the China relationship better than Albanese, saying: “I don’t believe that President Xi, with the strength of his leadership, respects a weak and incompetent Australian Prime Minister.”
“I do want to see the trading relationship prosper and expand, but I’m not going to pretend that we [have not] just had a circumnavigation of our country which has significant consequences for our own outlook on the region and what that means for our national security interests,” he said, referring to the recent visit by a Chinese navy flotilla.
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