The first obvious takeaway is that our prime minister has been wise not to heed the Austral Americans urging him to get to Washington as soon as possible.

He decided not to join the conga line of heads of state and governments prostrating themselves before Trump, only to be humiliated.

The media had some superficial fun at the expense of Kevin Rudd about some correct but unwise words he said earlier about Trump. Embassies must do a great deal of work in preparation for such meetings. The success of the meeting would be due in large part to the behind-the-scenes work that Rudd and his team did in preparation.

On AUKUS, our media have fallen for the line that it is full steam ahead on submarines. But is it? The first submarines are not due to be delivered to Australia until 2032. Trump and Albanese will be well gone by then.

As the US Navy Secretary John Phelan put it, “Navy’s boat building programs are performing at unacceptable levels with infrastructure either in decay or insufficient to meet capacity and demand needs. Nearly every ship class is behind in construction with large cost overruns”.

The problems in US submarine construction shows no sign of being fixed. And the British shipbuilding yards have even greater problems.

In the _Australian Financial review_ on 21 October, Professor James Curran described the AUKUS problem. _“_The inescapable stark reality is that there remain plenty of off-ramps for future administrations to not honour the pledge to begin transferring nuclear-powered submarines to Australia in 2032. AUKUS is likely to be shrouded in uncertainty for good deal yet. A ghost fleet remains."

On rare earths, there’s been considerable business enthusiasm. But I wonder if this market intervention will really deliver. Western economies are trying to catch up with China which is setting a new tempo in delivering economic success. As the economic historian Adam Tooze put it, “China isn’t just an analytical problem. It is the master key to understanding modernity. China is the biggest laboratory of organised modernisations there has ever been or will be at this level of organisation." The laggards in the West fail to grasp this. Deals on rare earths are fringe attempts to redress China’s extraordinary economic success.

But the major and most important takeaway from Trump is China. Trump’s comments must be very upsetting to all the anti-China hawks that infest our media and intelligence services.

We might even be able to see the beginning of a reconciliation between our economic dependence on China and the suffocating security embrace of the US. As a former Chinese ambassador to Australia put it, Australia  can’t continue to talk nicely across the table to China while kicking its shins under the table.

As Laura Tingle of the ABC put it on 21 October, “most notably, asked if he saw AUKUS as a deterrent against China, Trump said yeah, I do, I think it is, but I don’t think we’re going to need it. I think we will just be fine with China. China doesn’t want to do that. I don’t see that at all with President Xi. I think we’re going to get along very well as it pertains to Taiwan and others. That doesn’t mean it’s not the apple of his eye, cause probably it is, but I don’t see anything happening. We have a very good trade relationship.

“There was more. First of all, the US is the strongest military power by far and it’s not even close. Trump continued; we have the best equipment. We have the best of everything. Nobody is going to mess with that. I don’t see that at all with President XI…. I think we’ll end up with a very strong trade deal.”

A couple of days earlier James Curran commented, “Trump made it clear he does not want war with China. In a very telling moment Trump affirmed AUKUS as a deterrent against China but added I don’t think we’re going to need it”.

In the _Australian Financial Review,_ former DFAT secretary Peter Varghese had similar comments about China. “Not only did Trump convey an altogether more relaxed approach to China, he went so far as to say he wants China to succeed economically. So, in this respect, Trump’s China policy is a good fit for us, excluding the China threat hawks”.

Varghese continued, “Trump thinks the US is powerful enough unilaterally to deter China if it needs to do so… not only is he relatively relaxed about the China threat, he does not think there is a need for collective pushback “

In her article, Tingle also added that before the Trump/Albanese meeting, Paul Keating predicted that the US president would continue down the peace path, flushed with his initial success in the Middle East. In his usual colourful fashion, Keating described Trump as a “peacenik” not out of any connection to the peace movement but “because he has a deep philosophic commitment to peace itself. But more than that he has had a lick of the peace lolly and likes the taste”.

I don’t think Trump is a peacenik. The Gaza 20-point plan will fail because it does not recognise the rights and aspirations of the brave Palestinian people.

Trump is not about the morality of peace and justice. He doesn’t want to be a loser in Palestine, Ukraine, Taiwan…or anywhere!

And he is so unpredictable!