Chairman of the AAMC, Mr John Pollaers, said the appointment of Mr Liveris should provide fresh impetus to Australia’s own discussion about the critical contribution manufacturing makes to our social and economic future.

“We owe Andrew a great debt in Australia for helping to drive understanding about the importance and potential for advanced manufacturing for Australia’s future jobs and economic success,” Mr Pollaers said.

“His personal involvement at the establishment of the AAMC three and a half years ago was pivotal in creating our own private sector coalition of the willing. That was the beginning of Australia’s CEO-level campaign to address gaps in our industry policy settings.  The AAMC has been the impetus to a huge turnaround in thinking in Australia.”

Mr Trump made the announcement during a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he introduced Mr Liveris, a dual US-Australian citizen, as “one of the foremost leaders in manufacturing, one of the foremost leaders in the world of business”.

“Andrew Liveris

[is] one of the most respected businessman in the world and I’m asking him to come up and head up our American Manufacturing Council — and he’s agreed to do it,” Mr Trump said. “They will be tasked with finding ways to bring industry back to America.”

Mr Liveris previously was co-chair of President Obama’s Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, launched in 2011.  He was born in Darwin and studied chemical engineering at Brisbane’s University of Queensland.

“You’re paving the way with your administration, with your policies, to make it easier to do business in this country,” Mr Liveris responded to President-elect Trump. “Not a red-tape country but a red-carpet country for American businesses,” he said.

Mr Liveris, who in the past has warned that complacency is Australia’s greatest enemy, has been deeply involved over the past several years in Australia’s future manufacturing opportunities.

Mr Liveris has also said we must give farmers rights to substantial revenue from gas found under their land, which would encourage exploration and development at farms, as happens in the US.

Gas development would lead to massive employment creation and capital investments to bring the gas to market. This way, Australia could prevent a gas supply crisis and greatly reduce the cost of energy and create thousands of jobs in upstream manufacturing, he has said.

“Andrew Liveris’s latest appointment will mean further insights and linkages for us.  He is a key adviser to our own Industry Growth Centres program, which has been set up specifically to drive reinvigoration and strengthening of Australia’s comparative advantages,” Mr Pollaers said.