Albanese's World Cup Diplomacy Missed Opportunity Amidst War Concerns

In calmer times, a World Cup fixture might have offered Anthony Albanese a useful piece of informal diplomacy. These are not calmer times.

Barring an unlikely last-minute invitation from Donald Trump, the prime minister won't be zipping across the Pacific next week to cheer on the Socceroos against the United States.

The sports-loving prime minister had publicly mused about a potential trip to Seattle. The idea was to catch up with the president in a less formal setting. It might have helped smooth over Trump's criticism of Australia for not offering more help in the war with Iran.

But alas, no invitation has come. Nor is it clear whether Trump will even be there.

Trump booed at NBA Finals

The president, despite his enthusiasm about hosting the "best World Cup ever, " has yet to confirm his attendance at any particular match.

Perhaps this is for sensible security and scheduling reasons. Perhaps there's some wariness amid a scandal over sky-high ticket prices. Or perhaps some hesitancy after what happened at the NBA Finals game in New York this week. The 79-year-old president was loudly booed and then accused of falling asleep.

Whatever the reason, Albanese may have avoided an awkward own goal — being pictured at Seattle Stadium with Trump just as the war takes a darker turn, and just as his own frustration with the president is becoming harder to disguise.

"I wake up in the morning and get a readout that says the Strait of Hormuz has opened," the PM told the ABC's Raf Epstein yesterday, "then a couple of hours later it's closed, then it's open, then it's closed".

The president has made dozens of declarations about a peace deal being just around the corner. These days, Australia is treating them with a "caveat" of uncertainty, as Albanese put it. It was a polite way of saying Australia is not accepting at face value what the President of the United States proclaims.

This has been clear for some time, but it's rare for the prime minister to voice this scepticism so openly.

Indeed, Albanese pointed to the "great deal of difficulty" these on-again-off-again declarations of imminent peace are creating.

"Economic markets respond to these news statements," he noted, pointedly referring to the wild swings in oil prices and other stocks each time the president points to a breakthrough.

No sign of peace

Right now, there's little sign that the current "ceasefire" is about to turn into a permanent peace. Quite the opposite.

Over the last 48 hours, a US Apache helicopter was brought down over the Strait of Hormuz. The US responded with strikes against Iranian air defence, ground control stations and surveillance radar sites. Iran then launched strikes against the US bases in Bahrain and Jordan.

This looks more like escalation than de-escalation.

Trump clearly wants the war to end for both economic and political reasons. But leaving Iran with both its nuclear stockpile intact and a new power to control the Strait of Hormuz would be a humiliating outcome for the US.

Public disagreements between the US president and Israeli prime minister over whether to wind up Israel's pursuit of Hezbollah in Lebanon also complicate the picture.

It's now been more than 100 days since the war began, and oil prices have shot up. For the Albanese government, a decision will soon have to be made on whether to extend the halving of fuel excise beyond the end of this month.

To avoid another round of panic buying, that decision will presumably need to come soon. If not, motorists will have their jerry cans out again ahead of a possible price jump.

After the events of this week, suggesting no imminent end to the war, it's difficult to see how a three-month excise cut extension can be avoided.

That would cost the budget nearly $3 billion more, adding to the pile of war-related expenses, which also includes $7.5 billion being spent securing shipments of fuel and fertiliser.

The bigger headache for the government (and the Reserve Bank) is the prospect of prolonged high inflation. The longer it remains elevated, the harder it is to bring down.

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A political and economic toll

The toll for the government is both economic and political. Cost-of-living pain fuels voter frustration, and in turn, more popular support for One Nation.

The prime minister said it himself when asked this week about yet another poll showing surging popularity for Pauline Hanson: "It's the economy, stupid."

Labor is now starting to treat the One Nation threat more seriously — trying to shift the contest away from migration to questions about what the party is offering battlers on Medicare, education, and the minimum wage.

Whether it will slow One Nation's rise remains to be seen. Nothing else has yet. Including the accusation from the Liberals' Andrew Hastie that Hanson is "MAGA first" rather than "Australia first", due to her unyielding support for Trump and the deeply unpopular war in Iran.

Albanese's initial support for this war has turned to irritation and scepticism at the constant declarations that peace is near.

There may have been a time when flying to Seattle to sit with Trump for a World Cup match seemed like a clever piece of football diplomacy.

But as this war drags on, and the prime minister's frustration becomes harder to conceal, the invitation that never came may prove to have been a small political mercy.