Start cooking the popcorn and grab a comfy chair, preferably with line-of-sight to a TV. The scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump on Monday 20 October in Washington will rate like a State-of-Origin decider.
The main topics are supposedly critical minerals and the AUKUS submarines, but if you work in public affairs this is all about the “optics”.
Even the Oval Office assignation doesn’t end up live-to-air, how it’s managed will be fascinating theatre.
Meetings between Heads of State are usually micromanaged within a millimetre of their lives. Agendas are hammered out in advance and furiously agreed. Diplomats equip each party with tightly scripted remarks, and nothing of any substance is said until media depart and the doors are closed behind them.
The end products are usually carefully constructed, vacuous written communiques and posed images of smiling handshakes.
Last February’s meeting between Trump, his Vice President J.D. Vance and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky remains one of the most extraordinary news events of 2025.
Trump invited cameras in – and let them stay. Zelensky and his minders must have known something was up. Trump and Vance then set about slamming a clearly mortified Zelensky around the room like a Nerf ball. It was like watching a car crash.
How can Albo’s team prepare the PM for a meeting with someone who runs on impulse most of the time, and whose modus operandi is disrupting first and taking advantage of the fall-out later?
In issues management, you prepare for the worst and hope for the best. All scenarios in-between are considered and planned for.
It’s still unclear whether the exchange will be a contrived set-piece or a televised cage match because It all depends on what side of the bed POTUS wakes up.
Craig Regan, Senior Account Director
Image: AI generated
