Albanese knows Trump loves nothing more than making deals. He came prepared

And just like that, it was done.

Almost a year on from the re-election of Donald Trump and six months on from the re-election of Anthony Albanese, the US president and the Australian prime minister have finally had their first formal meeting in the White House.

And while this meeting wasn’t exactly what ambassador Kevin Rudd might have hoped for, with the president inadvertently admitting he didn’t even know what the former prime minister looked like, when the smoke cleared from that incident, the current PM and president had cemented a relationship.

The president and the prime minister inked a deal on critical minerals to unlock a $13 billion pipeline of investment in Australia.

The deal is designed to circumvent China’s vice-like grip on much of the world’s critical resources and their processing, which are needed to build everything from the lithium-ion batteries used in cars and phones through to advanced weapons systems.

But value and substance of the deal isn’t huge in geopolitical terms. Each government is contributing “at least” $US1 billion, and even that isn’t a sacrifice for Australia because US investment is much needed in the sector, and the deal includes investment in US facilities too.

To put that in context, the AUKUS submarine deal will cost at least $380 billion, Australia recently promised $12 billion to upgrade a submarine facility in Perth and Australia has already handed over $1.6 billion of a promised $4.6 billion in payments to US industry for access to those nuclear submarines.

Yet in return for the rare earth pact, Albanese got essentially everything he wanted and more.

After months of concern about the fate of the AUKUS submarine deal, which US undersecretary of defence Elbridge Colby has under review and which the opposition has repeatedly warned was under existential threat, Trump was suddenly effusive about the deal.

Warnings that Australia’s defence spending was too low were brushed aside as Trump declared “you can only do so much”.

Albanese and his team had come armed with a deal, and the ultimate dealmaker, Trump, was more than happy to pull out the presidential sharpie and sign on the dotted line.

Domestically, Albanese’s handling of the Trump meeting will probably be well received, given the prime minister didn’t get yelled at or dressed down and walked out smiling as a key line of opposition criticism – that he hadn’t met the president – went down in flames.

Almost from the moment that Trump was re-elected, the federal opposition has blamed Rudd for the fact that a meeting had not taken place, warned his presence was destructive to the relationship and even suggested that if AUKUS was cancelled or re-fashioned, it would be Rudd’s fault.

After the meeting, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said that Rudd’s position was now “untenable” and that he must go.

It was an unserious statement from a would-be prime minister, and one contradicted by her former Liberal colleagues Malcolm Turnbull and Arthur Sinodinos.

Sure, it’s embarrassing for Rudd that Trump didn’t know who he was and didn’t recognise him by sight. But the opposition attack has come unstuck, and the sooner they realise it, the better for them.

If the opposition want Rudd removed from his post, they should stop calling for it to happen. Albanese is a stubborn man and will dig his heels in over his friend and ambassador’s future.

For months, Albanese has attempted to play down the significance of his first Trump meeting as potential encounters came and went.

Now that it has happened, he may start singing a different tune.

Albanese’s reputation has been enhanced, and Rudd, the dutiful ambassador, probably won’t even much care that he was presidential roadkill on the way.

The long-awaited meeting secured one big, beautiful deal, enhanced another and delivered an “Australia first” outcome.

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