Morrison has given a speech to the Australian American Leadership Dialogue. Some excerpts. After opening Morrison moves pretty quickly to the pandemic. The PM rather pointedly says Australia is the "partner of choice" for the Pacific when it comes to supplying vaccines 1/
Now defence cooperation. Morrison reiterates that Australia wants to build capacity to produce more advanced weapons, using US tech. He says this will also be valuable to the US because Australia can be a "second, secure source of supply" for it 2/
Morrison- "we're investing our wealth and treasure to make Australia stronger so we can be ready to defend our nation and a rules-based order in our region" (the use of "treasure" is a key tell that this is for a US audience) 3/
Climate change. Morrison quite animated. Makes several arguments he made yesterday. The US has been contemplating following the EU and introducing a border carbon tax (though Kerry has sounded very lukewarm on it more recently) - Morrison makes it clear Australia opposes that 4/
Morrison again says China produces more carbon emissions than OECD nations combined. Says this is not a criticism of Beijing, but a simple fact and countries like the US and Australia have to help developing nations make the transition to new technology 5/
Incidentally, and apropos of nothing, Morrison is reading Zoellick's book, apparently 6/
Interesting. Morrison refers to the economic coercion Australia has faced (he doesn't actually name China here but of course it's crystal clear) and says the episode highlights why the US and Australia should establish a Strategic Economic Dialogue for top officials 7/
I *think* this is the first time this idea has been publicly floated. No further details from Morrison about how it would work, but the framing is pretty clear. Interesting. 8/
Morrison finishes with some familiar points, including those he made at Cornwall - the need to tackle WTO reform, the need to demonstrate that liberal democracy works, the need to "support, defend and renovate" the international order 9/
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