So Anthony Albanese has secured his one on one meeting with Donald Trump and we are all supposed to pretend this is a good outcome.

Not meeting Trump is just as useful as meeting Trump, in terms of securing some sort of commitment that lasts longer than one of the US President’s spray tans. But it at least comes without the ritual humiliation a meeting with Trump inevitably inflicts upon a world leader.

Next month’s meeting, secured after some fancy diplomatic footing on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly may pause some of the pearl-clutching from US defence hawks and quell domestic political attacks. But while Australia is trapped in the binary of the US or bust, ritual humiliation appears to be our lot.

Just how captured Australia is by its need to appease this administration was evident in Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles’ response to the outlandish, dangerous and insulting “autism announcement” that America’s nepo-tantrum in human form – RFK jr – and Trump pushed upon the world this week.

Even leaving aside that neuro-divergency is not an illness one needs to “cured from”, as well as the junk science used to justify the claims, the simple response is that we trust our own health authorities. Not, as Marles said “any advice or determinations which are coming out of the USFDA, we will obviously look at very carefully”.

Will we? Or will we *gasp* trust our own authorities and institutions, which are not being undermined by podcasters and WWE personalities with Facebook meme qualifications?

It may not seem like much, but the Deputy PM being unable to comprehensively push back against batshittery from brain worms and their hosts because it has come from the US should be a warning sign for all of us.

Just as many in the Australian media seemed unable to tell that Trump’s UN General Assembly address was A) largely the same speech he gave last time, and B) directed solely to his base, many in both the media and the wider body politic seem completely unable, and unwilling, to admit that none of this is business as usual.

Trump delivered a spray for his base at the UN meeting in New York this week.

It is not a case of just waiting out the Trump administration. The mid-term elections are not going to save us. Dismissing all of this is just a blip, and in three years and three months we will return to the world we knew, is at best naive and, at worst, wilfully destructive.

America does not care about Australia and is now saying the quiet things out loud. It is evident to anyone paying attention that the US, which is behind in its own submarine builds, does not have the capability to “ramp up” production to build Australia’s. Trump has already said that he doesn’t think that “allies” should have access to US technology because “they may not always be allies”.

Just this week, ABC global affairs chief John Lyons reported his contacts in Washington were openly saying Australia will never see the AUKUS submarines.

Pretending a meeting with a mercurial embossed carbuncle of a President will change reality is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

That is not to say that there are not things happening behind the scenes.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Australian government is at least considering how to strengthen an AUKUS deal that doesn’t entirely rely on the US – AUK, if you will.

The clearest indication of that came last month, with the signing of the Geelong Treaty, which commits Australia and the UK to half a century of “defence cooperation”.

With Europe increasingly wary of Trump, and NATO considering a future not contingent on US support, Australia does not have the option of sticking its head in the sand.

If Albanese must meet Trump, then it is smart to meet him after a face-to-face with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as well as discussions with European leaders.

There are at least hints the Australian government is looking towards a plan B. But whether or not we pursue what is ultimately in our best interest will come down to two things – ignoring those captured by American fool’s gold, and facing down the opposition.

Too much of Australia’s foreign policy looks inward – it is what keeps us from being a good regional neighbour in the Pacific, what stops us from exploring what is possible, and keeps us cowed and looking small on the world stage.

It is hard to imagine what the response would have been to a Labor leader throwing away the “politics stops at the water’s edge” foreign policy convention as blatantly as Sussan Ley did, when she wrote to assure Republican senators attempting to bully Australia that she did not agree with the Albanese government’s decision to formally recognise Palestine. That the reaction has been so muted shows just how captured so many Australian institutions are by the idea that America is right, because it is America, and how difficult it is to imagine a future of self-directed sovereignty.

But we should reject a political leader selling us out to disgruntled foreign ideologues, just as much as we should reject political leaders kowtowing to foreign powers out of habit.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute