A prominent Republican pollster has claimed Donald Trump does not like Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, and has warned Anthony Albanese to sack him if he wants to secure a tariff exemption.
Brent Buchanan, a GOP pollster and messaging strategist, said that Australia needed to replace Rudd in Washington DC if it hoped to secure a carve-out from Trump’s punitive ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs.
‘Donald Trump needs to find an Australian that he likes or Australia needs to find an Australian that Donald Trump likes and let that person take point because so much with Donald Trump is personal relationships,’ Mr Buchanan told Sky News.
Host Laura Jayes asked whether Trump didn’t like Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is yet to secure a face-to-face meeting with the US President.
‘I think he doesn’t like the current ambassador, and that’s one of the biggest issues,’ Mr Buchanan responded.
Rudd, a former Prime Minister, was appointed as Australia’s ambassador to the US by Albanese in March 2023.
He enjoys cross-party support in Australia, but his position has been under threat since past negative comments he has made about Trump came to light.
In November, shortly after Trump’s historic election win, Daily Mail Australia revealed how Rudd never envisioned his comeback, calling his first term a period of ‘episodic craziness’.
Brent Buchanan, a GOP pollster and messaging strategist, said that Australia needed to replace Kevin Rudd (pictured) in Washington DC if it hoped to secure a carve-out from Donald Trump’s punitive ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs
In November, shortly after Trump’s historic election win, Daily Mail Australia revealed how Rudd never envisioned his comeback, calling his first term a period of ‘episodic craziness’
‘Never take a backwards step in saying we’re allies with the United States,’ Rudd said in June 2022, nine months before he would be appointed as Australia’s man in Washington.
‘For all the American pre-disposition to episodic craziness… look at Trump: how did that happen? That was a walk on the wild side for all of us.’
In other, since deleted comments made online, Rudd has labelled Trump a ‘village idiot’, a ‘traitor to the West’ and ‘the most destructive president in history’.
But Mr Buchanan, founder of Cygnal Polling and Analytics, said Trump placed a lot of emphasis on personal relationships and would be open to cutting a deal with the right person.
‘Donald Trump’s a deal maker, and so if you bring a deal, he’s going to talk through it,’ he added.
Australia is facing 10 per cent tariffs on goods exported to the US and – like every US trading partner except the UK – has been hit with 50 per cent tariffs on aluminium and steel sent to America.
The deadline for the higher reciprocal tariffs to come into effect is 9 July.
On Monday morning, Albanese said his government was continuing to push for the tariffs to be removed.
‘We’ll continue to put our case forward that it shouldn’t be 10 (per cent). It should be zero. That is what a reciprocal tariff will be,’ he told reporters in Canberra.
The Australian government has repeatedly called the trade measures an ‘act of economic self-harm’.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong is heading to Washington this week for ‘Quad’ talks with her counterparts from the US, India and Japan.
She is expected to hold one-on-one meetings with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, where tariffs are expected to be high on the agenda.
