Europeans are doing it, the great bruiser Doug Ford is doing it, Mark Carney is gearing up to do it – even Keir Starmer is doing it.

But it’s a dance our very own Prime Minister isn’t doing.

Whatever reputation as a factional bruiser Albo might once have had it has been diminished along with his Prime Ministerial performance.

The latest problem is a cringemaking offer to let Trump access our critical minerals. Now Australia has a long history of letting foreigners take over our minerals and resources, profit massively from them and then avoid paying tax. Back in the day we also let English companies take over vast tracts of agricultural land and reap massive profits from them.

Now Albanese is offering deals on critical metals to Trump in return for some unspecified favours – presumably tariff relief. As any fool knows if you give in and make an offer like this Trump will just see you as weak and exploit you even further. Indeed. even far more than the long history of US exploitation of us – whether it be resources or the needless sacrifices of Australian soldiers in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

How generous the offer is, by the way, moot and indeed if you look at the share prices of most of the listed critical minerals companies investors aren’t exactly enjoying a Poseidon type boom.

Let’s for a minute consider the responses of some others in similar situation. Doug Ford led the campaign to strip Ontario liquor stores of US booze and is threatening massive tariffs on US goods. Doug Ford plays ice hockey – Donald Trump plays golf and cheats.  Ford is also threatening to cut off oil and gas exports. Mark Carney is now Prime Minister (even though he doesn’t have a seat in Parliament yet) on the strength of standing up to Trump. Every major European ruler, other than, Victor Orban is fighting back.

Malcolm Turnbull, may no longer be PM, but he has been forthright about Trump and stood up to him when he was PM.

China is playing its usual long game and, while it has many problems of its own, is gleeful at what’s happening. Putin keeps playing Trump like a puppet and has walked away from the supposed 24 hour fix of the Ukraine war.

What, by the way, is the kompromat that Putin has on Trump? We don’t know but during the US 2024 campaign a newspaper reporter asked Nikolai Patrushev, who is close to Putin, if Trump’s election would mean “positive changes from Russia’s point of view.” Patrushev answered: “To achieve success in the elections, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. And as a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.”

Who knows what Peter Dutton is doing other than chortling over the fact that Trump won’t take Albo’s calls and how he would have handled it all differently. It is doubtful if Trump even knows who Dutton is let along knowing much about Australian politics.  He was a bit unsure who some other PMs were too. Scott Morrison keeps photobombing Trump pic opportunities but who knows if Trump remembers who he is.

There are several problems facing Albanese. First, he is focussed on traditional fears of damaging the US-Australian relationship and not realising that from the US point of view, whatever they say the relationship is, it is purely transactional. Getting us to shed some blood in some foreign war is not designed to enhance their military clout but to provide protective colouration to whatever crusade they are fighting.

Indeed, they don’t take much notice of what Australia says anyway. The Australian jungle fighting experience was ignored by the US Vietnam commanders. One of our Ministers was put sharply in his place, during one of the Middle Eastern wars, when he suggested something about naval operations only to be told this was the US’s war and the Australians would do what they were told.

Now many Australians are cringing. For decades we were accused of having a cultural cringe. Gough Whitlam began the process of changing that. He went to China and the LNP attacked him for it – not knowing that Kissinger was there before him. Our reflex reactions to the US have not changed much since and that Whitlam far-sightedness is totally absent.

But the fundamental questions in all this are whether will be better off by cringing and trying to supplicate Trump or are we better off standing for our independence and principles?

The reality that the Albanese-Dutton reflexive cringing and supplicating to Trump simply won’t work. There is an alternative though. If we could combine the Ford bruiser approach; get whatever magic potion catapulted Starmer into action; co-operated with the new Canadian Prime Minister; and, mobilised Australians to turn their back on symbolic US products as the Canadians have done, we would be better off and would preserve some pride at least.

Sadly, the reality is that neither Albo nor Dutton seems capable of any of this.