By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese discussed opportunities for Australia and the United States to cooperate on critical minerals in a phone call with President Donald Trump on Thursday evening, his office said.
The two leaders spoke about opportunities to work together on trade and critical minerals “in the interests of both nations,” a statement from Albanese’s office said.
They also discussed the importance of shared security interests, it added.
Albanese wrote on social media that it was a “warm and constructive conversation.”
Albanese, reelected as leader of the centre-left Labor government in a May national election, is yet to meet Trump, after a meeting scheduled on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada in June was cancelled when Trump left early.
Albanese is expected to travel to the United States in September to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
Australian officials had been seeking to schedule a meeting with Trump while Albanese is in the United States, although this was not mentioned in the readout of the call.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles travelled to Washington last week and met with Vice President JD Vance, saying on Monday he expected a leaders meeting “in the not too distant future.”
The United States is Australia’s key security ally, while China is its largest trading partner.
The Trump administration has pressed Australia to lift defence spending from 2% to 3.5% of gross domestic product, as the Pentagon also conducts a review of the trilateral AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership.
In 2023, the United States, Australia, and Britain unveiled details of the plan to sell Australia U.S. nuclear-powered attack submarines from the early 2030s, and later build submarines, to counter China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.
Albanese said in April that Australia, which has some of the world’s largest critical mineral deposits, would set up a strategic reserve as it looks to create a separate supply chain in a market dominated by China.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney, Editing by Timothy Heritage, Rod Nickel)
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