Hon. Anthony Albanese MP - Press Conference
13 August 2026
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Press Conferences Australian Parliament
11:55 - 15:18
Speaker 7
Good morning, colleagues. My apologies first for getting out so early. I have two previous arranged appointments in Sydney this morning. Late last night, I had a very productive, constructive, and lengthy and substantive phone call with President Trump of the United States. The President and I exchanged views on a number of global and regional issues, including the conflict in the Middle East and recent developments in the Pacific.
This included briefing the President on the recent alliances that we have established, the coming into force of the alliance with Papua New Guinea, the signing of the alliance with Fiji, and the other arrangements that we have made right across the Pacific and Southeast Asia, all of which are contributing to a more peaceful, stable, and prosperous region. We discussed the strength of our alliance, which is 75 years old this year and continues to go from strength to strength. I said to the President, we have had two alliances in our first 125 years with the United States and with New Zealand, and then two alliances in the last 12 months. That says something about the work that we are doing in our own region. We reviewed the significant progress that has been made under AUKUS, which remains full steam ahead.
We agreed it was a project that is and will continue to deliver benefits for the United States, for Australia, and for the United Kingdom. We discussed the progress on Pillar 2 of AUKUS, where we have agreed our first signature project focused on joint development of cutting-edge payloads and enabling systems for uncrewed undersea vehicles. I was able to brief the President on pioneering Australian defense technology, including uncrewed military systems, Ghost Bat and Ghost Shark. We were able to review progress of our agreement on critical minerals, which is making real progress, under which we are delivering more than three and a half billion dollars worth of critical minerals projects. This includes the Alcoa gallium project, which will be able to supply around 10% of the global demand for gallium.
We both welcomed the recent investment of US $400 million in Sunrise Energy Metals project near Dubbo. This is a project which is critical for the production of high-heat aluminum alloys used in fighter jets and spacecraft. We also discussed developments in technology, including artificial intelligence, and agreed to continue to work closely on these issues. We also discussed our economic relationship and noted the significant investments being made in each of our countries, which are building our respective sovereign capability. The President expressed his appreciation for the more than 180 firefighters that are currently in the United States to support with wildfires, and which builds on our long history of helping each other in times of crisis.
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