President Donald Trump previewed a trip to Australia on Friday at the White House.
Trump told reporters that it’s a ‘great place’ during an Oval Office sit-down with the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull.
‘We will be there,’ President Trump pledged.
The U.S. president did not say when he plans to be there or whether the trip would be this year.
SEALED WITH A HANDSHAKE: President Donald Trump previewed a trip to Australia on Friday at the White House as he met with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the White House
It was Turnbull’s first trip to the White House since Trump took office last year. The two men had met in New York on a previous occasion.
The relationship between them started off terse after Trump berated Turnbull on a call days into his presidency for a ‘stupid deal’ his counterpart struck with the previous administration.
Turnbull and Barack Obama agreed to send 1,200 refugees that Australia. A leaked transcript of the call in August revealed Trump’s complete frustration that the was saddled with the agreement that he complained was ‘terrible.’
‘I will be seen as a weak and ineffective leader in my first week by these people. This is a killer,’ Trump told him.
The two leaders have patched things up, their respective governments have said, and they went about showing it on Friday at the White House.
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump were both at the South Portico when Turnbull and his wife Lucy arrived to the White House. They greeted the Turnbulls warmly and invited them inside.
Minutes later, the leaders walked down the White House’s colonnade together, deep in conversation, as their wives had a lively conversation just behind them. They stopped in front of the iconic Rose Garden just outside the Oval Office to pose for more pictures before entering the building again.
An awkward silence befell the couples, though, as reporters poured into watch them deliver brief remarks before a longer meeting with their aides. For more than 10 seconds they sat quietly, not talking to one another, as reporters waited for someone to say something.
Eventually Trump said, ‘The relationship with have with Australia is a terrific relationship and probably stronger now than ever before, maybe because of our relationship, our friendship.
‘We’re working on trade deals, we’re working on military and protection and all of the things that you would think we would be discussing today. … A lot of good things will come out of this visit.’
Turnbull followed, saying, ‘It’s 100 years of mateship that we’re celebrating this this year, 100 years ago, the first time Australians and American soldiers went into battle together in the Battle of the Hamel, July 4 1918.
‘We have been fighting side-by-side in freedom’s cause ever since. One hundred years of mateship and 100 more to come.’
At the close of their remarks a reporter asked the U.S. president if he’d come to Australia and he said that he would.
A visit could come this fall when Trump attends regional meetings in the Pacific.