File photo: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (L) and Australian Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd attend a Future Made in Australia investment event hosted by Macquarie Group in New York, New York, US, on September 23, 2025. Photo: VCG

Australia's Ambassador to the US and former prime minister Kevin Rudd will resign a year before the end of his term, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced at a press conference on Tuesday, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Albanese said the decision was "entirely" made by Rudd after he accepted an offer to become global president and chief executive officer of the international relations think tank the Asia Society, Xinhua reported. 

Rudd is set to take up the new role while also heading the Asia Society's Center for China Analysis, the report said.

Following the announcement, Albanese posted two messages on his X account to thank Rudd for his service, writing "Thank you for your tireless work, @MrKrudd" in one post, and "Thank you" accompanied by Australian and US flags in another.

The news prompted renewed discussion online about a previously reported exchange between Rudd and US President Donald Trump. In the comment section beneath Albanese's posts, some users referenced the earlier dispute, with one netizen sharing what appeared to be an image from a 2025 presidential press conference showing Trump and Rudd, alongside the sentence "I don't like you."

According to a report by The Guardian in October 2025, Trump told the Australian ambassador during a White House cabinet room meeting, "I don't like you either. And I probably never will." 

The newspaper described the remark as "the testiest and most uncomfortable" moment of what it called a typically freewheeling and chaotic presidential press conference, noting that it was followed by laughter across the room, "the guffaws coming as if a pressure valve had been released in Australian government and diplomatic circles."

Rudd was later heard to apologize to the president, leaning over the table to say sorry to the man he had called a "village idiot" four years earlier. Trump told Rudd that "all is forgiven" after the media filed out, The Guardian reported, citing Australian sources presented at the meeting.

Rudd served as Australia's prime minister from 2007 to 2010 and again in 2013. He was appointed ambassador to the United States by Albanese in March 2023, Xinhua reported.


Global Times