an awkward moment<\/a> during Albanese\u2019s first face-to-face meeting with Trump in October.<\/p>\nAlbanese said the decision had been Rudd\u2019s alone, praising his contribution to ties between Canberra and Washington under both Trump and his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
Before serving as ambassador, Rudd was president and chief executive of the Asia Society from 2021 to 2023. He is a recognised expert on Chinese-American relations and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have seen first-hand how hard he works, not just in the last few years but throughout his public life,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always brought an extraordinary level of energy and discipline to public service.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe applied his relentless effort, his experience, intellect and determination to advance Australia\u2019s interests in Washington, and Kevin Rudd has served the nation well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government is expected to announce a new ambassador in coming weeks.<\/p>\n
Trump is yet to name his own envoy to Canberra, nearly a year into his second term.<\/p>\n
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, praised Rudd and his wife, the businesswoman Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Rein, saying their work in Washington had helped strengthen the Australian economy and security.<\/p>\n
\u201cKevin has helped unlock billions of dollars in new investment and collaboration, including AI datacentres and quantum in sectors that will strengthen the Australian economy and our security for decades to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s put Australia\u2019s superannuation industry up with the United States, turbocharging our engagement and investment and strengthening our credentials as a financial services centre of the Indo-Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labor was criticised for not adequately preparing for the possibility of Trump winning the November 2024 presidential election, but Albanese pointed out Rudd that had maintained close ties with leaders of both major American political parties and had personally predicted Trump\u2019s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n
Albanese sidestepped a question about whether he might appoint former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison as ambassador.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe relationship that Kevin has had with members of the Trump administration \u2026 whoever follows Kevin, if it\u2019s as good as that, I\u2019ll be pretty happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll make decisions down the track about the right person with the right skills and the right skills to be able to reach across a broad spectrum of support. That was something that Kevin Rudd was able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement posted to social media on Tuesday morning, Rudd thanked Albanese and Wong, describing his appointment to Washington as \u201can honour.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be remaining in America working between New York and Washington on the future of US-China relations, which I have always believed to be the core question for the future stability of our region and the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a \u2018think and do\u2019 tank, Asia Society\u2019s formidable Center for China Analysis will be an important platform to that end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Labor and the Coalition have appointed former politicians to serve in Washington, including former Liberal treasurer Joe Hockey, Howard adviser Arthur Sinodinos, and former Labor leader Kim Beazley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Rudd will step down as Australian ambassador to the US at the end of March, Anthony Albanese…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-403672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}