President Donald Trump jokingly disparaged Kevin Rudd, Australia‘s ambassador to the United States, over negative comments Rudd made about the president in the past during a Monday morning bilateral with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The president at first claimed that he did not recall Rudd’s comments about him in the past, or even knowing Rudd, when questioned by a reporter in the Cabinet Room before he eventually told the ambassador that he did not “like him either.”
“I don’t know anything about him. If he said bad, then maybe he’ll like to apologize,” Trump said despite Rudd, himself a former Australian prime minister, sitting opposite him.
“Did an ambassador say something bad?” Trump asked Albanese, who sat next to him.
“Don’t tell me,” Trump said as the two leaders laughed. “Where is he? Is he still working for you?”
Albanese then pointed to Rudd as the entire room laughed again. Several members of the Trump administration also attended the Monday meeting, including Vice President JD Vance, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“You said bad?” Trump asked Rudd directly.
“Before I took this position, Mr. President,” Rudd responded.
“I don’t like you either,” Trump quipped back, eliciting more laughter. “I don’t. And I probably never will.”
Rudd wrote on social media in 2020 that Trump was “the most destructive president in history,” and that he “drags America and democracy through the mud.”
But as Trump easily secured a second victory in the White House in 2024, Rudd deleted those posts “out of respect for the office of president of the United States” according to a statement he posted online.
“This has been done to eliminate the possibility of such comments being misconstrued as reflecting his positions as Ambassador and, by extension, the views of the Australian Government,” the statement continues.
Albanese and Trump also signed a critical minerals deal involving the mining, processing, and exporting of rare earths from Australia to the U.S. The deal could give Trump a way to get around China’s stronghold on the rare earth mineral industry amid a trade war. He and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet later this month at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea.
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“In about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical mineral and rare earths, and you won’t know what to do with them,” Trump bragged before the two leaders signed the deal. “They’ll be worth about $2.”
“The U.S. has a trade surplus with Australia, as you know, and we can continue to take what is every opportunity to improve the relationship even further and make it even stronger,” Albanese added. “And today’s agreement on critical minerals and rare earths is just taking it to the next level, seizing those opportunities which are before us.”