Gina Rinehart flexes Trump relationship ahead of her very own Brat Summer

When US President Donald Trump nominated the former Republican congressman David Brat to become the next American ambassador to Australia last month, we were eager to learn more about the man who could soon become Trump’s eyes and ears in Canberra.

But one thing we weren’t expecting to discover so easily was that Brat has the early support of Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, despite his vociferous criticism of a US government loan vehicle that benefited Rinehart’s Roy Hill iron ore mine to the tune of more than $US690 million.

Rinehart, however, appears prepared to bury the hatchet. “Mrs Rinehart welcomes the appointment of the USA ambassador to Australia,” a spokesman for Rinehart told CBD in a sprawling 496-word statement on Wednesday, covering everything from the billionaire’s relationship with the Trump administration to where she suggests Australia could learn from its ally.

“There are very few Australians with the depth of relationships Mrs Rinehart has with the Trump administration.”

Brat is a former economics professor who, according to RateMyProfessor.com, was branded “hot” by one student and as “eye candy” by another, if lacking a little in focus. He’s been described as “the Elizabeth Warren of the right” and at one point as having the potential to be “the next big rock-star Christian academic”.

But there isn’t much to be found on his interest in Australia – to the extent he has any – save, that is, for the tangential policy bust-up that saw him square up in opposition to Rinehart’s interests.

At the centre of this skirmish was the Export-Import Bank of the United States. The government bank was the subject of a wave of criticism by Brat and others in the 2010s, which, along with a conservative immigration campaign, Brat ultimately parlayed into a successful tilt at Congress in 2014.

The bank, which closed in 2015 but was reauthorised by Trump in 2019, financed foreign companies to buy American-made equipment. It injected close to $10 billion into Australian projects, including the financing of Caterpillar equipment for Roy Hill.

Speaking in Congress in 2015, Brat argued that the Ex-Im Bank “does not advance the [American] public interest” and imposes “real costs on you, the American consumer”, while also describing the bank as an issuer of “free money” and “corporate welfare” for “corporate cronies”.

Corporate cronies! A lot has changed since then, of course. But Rinehart is still one of Australia’s most influential billionaires – and an ally of Brat’s new boss. In the statement, Rinehart’s spokesman went on to say that, not only is the US-Australian relationship “very important”, but that there is “much we can or should learn” from the Trump administration.

This included, but was not limited to: “Cutting government tape, regulation and taxes”; “exiting the tape, regulation and bureaucracy-increasing, economy-destroying Paris Accord”; and, “defunding Climategate, including stopping taxpayers’ money being spent on subsidies for electric vehicles”.

The list went on: “Defunding bird-and bat-maiming, bird-and bat-killing toxic wind towers” and “the importance of enabling fuel and energy self-reliance, (‘drill baby drill’ and ‘dig baby dig’!)”

The last time we heard from Rinehart was shortly after she had paid a visit to other Friends of Trump in the US to attend the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, ground zero of the MAGA movement, where she was seen sporting what appeared to be a diamond-encrusted “TRUMP” handbag. This year’s conference was the first the US president missed in about a decade.

At the time, Rinehart said it was “terrific to meet up with the youngsters from Australia” at the conference. A week earlier, Rinehart spent some time in Texas, according to The Australian Financial Review, as part of a trip made to pick up some tips on how to import the US populist movement to Australia. She reportedly spent time with a gaggle of Australian conservatives, including Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff, James Ashby.

And it sounds like Rinehart already has some ideas. For starters, Rinehart’s spokesman said, she warned that Australia “should not be too biased or arrogant (or stupid)” to not learn from the United States.

“When Australia is facing numerous crises,” Rinehart said through her spokesman, “we should not be too biased or arrogant (or stupid), that we don’t try to learn from our very important ally”, listing as Australia’s problems the inverse of what she said Australia could learn from the Trump administration.

As for the Roy Hill financing, camp Rinehart said the loan was repaid in a timely manner in full, with interest. But we can’t imagine Brat will be interested in taking up that fight again. The US embassy in Canberra deferred our questions for Brat to the White House, given Brat’s appointment has yet to be confirmed. The White House didn’t respond in time for publication.

Even though Trump announced Brat as his nominee for the ambassadorship late last month, there are a number of steps before he is confirmed and can assume his role in Canberra. But that could take a while. It took an average of 161 days for nominees to be confirmed during Trump’s first term, according to the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, and an average of 193 days under the Biden administration.

At least the charming former economics professor will have the intervening months to study whose ring he’ll need to kiss when he lands, at which point Rinehart – and the rest of the nation – can likely expect to enjoy her very own Brat Summer.