Australia–United States relations Minister for Defence, US Secretary of Defense and US Secretary of State. The first Australian visit by a serving United States President was that of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966 to seek support for Australia's ongoing involvement in the Vietnam War. Australia had previously sent advisers and combat troops to Vietnam. In 1992, George H. W. Bush was the first of four US presidents to address a joint meeting of the Australian Parliament. Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, ratified the Kyoto Protocol on 3 December 2007, leaving the United States and Canada as the last major industrial nations not to
Ngo Dinh Diem presidential visit to Australia and by that time, little goodwill remained. With new leadership in Saigon, and an escalation in the war against the communists, Australia sent in ground troops—including conscripts—to support South Vietnam, but over time, the bipartisanship of the 1950s evaporated. The centre-left ALP became more sympathetic to the communists and Labor leader Arthur Calwell stridently denounced South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ as a "fascist dictator" and a "butcher" ahead of his 1967 visit—at the time Ky was the chief of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force and headed a military junta. Despite the controversy leading up to the visit,