Singapore: US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed his Australian counterpart, Richard Marles, to ramp up defence spending to counter China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific, as the two men talked up the strength of the alliance under the Trump administration.
Marles would not divulge what spending figure the pair had discussed, but America’s demand would be likely to mean billions of dollars in extra defence funding.
Marles confirmed Australia was open to further budget increases after meeting with Hegseth on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s top defence summit, as he prepared to deliver a speech on Saturday warning of the risk of an unchecked arms build-up by China and other major nuclear powers.
“I wouldn’t put a number on it. The need to increase defence spending is something that he definitely raised,” Marles told ABC TV on Friday.
“We have done a lot already, but we are absolutely up for having this conversation, and we want to calibrate our defence spending to meet the strategic moment that we all face.”
Marles said Hegseth’s request was consistent with the broader push by the Trump administration for its allies to spend more on defence in order to benefit from the US security guarantee.
Defence Minister Richard Marles (left) and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth met in Singapore.Credit: James Brickwood, AP
Hegseth’s defence expenditure drive builds on similar calls by Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, who in March said Australia’s military spending should rise to at least 3 per cent of gross domestic product, saying Canberra faced a “powerful challenge in China”.
It comes after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday criticised a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which found a lack of short-term defence funding had left the Australian Defence Force unprepared for conflict, and also called for an expenditure increase to 3 per cent of GDP.
Marles would not comment specifically on whether he had raised concerns with Hegseth about the Trump administration’s decision to dismantle US government aid programs that directed funding to essential services across the region, which experts have warned would create a soft-power vacuum for China to fill. But he said the pair had discussed ways to ensure peace and stability “and that does involve the support of developing countries”.
The pair also discussed the AUKUS defence arrangement, which is scheduled to deliver Australia three Virginia-class submarines by the early 2030s, though Marles did not confirm a guarantee from Hegseth, saying instead: “We’re doing everything we can to see that happen”.
Defence spending was a key issue in the recent federal election campaign, with a Coalition plan to hit the 3 per cent GDP target projected to cost the budget an extra $100 billion through the first half of the 2030s, making it the second-biggest expenditure for federal taxpayers, eclipsing the age pension and NDIS.
Marles has previously defended the government’s plan to pump an extra $50 billion into defence over the next decade. Defence spending is currently hovering just above 2 per cent of GDP, or $56 billion a year.
Hegseth declared the US-Australia alliance was “strong and as robust as it’s ever been”, ahead of his meeting with Marles, the second time the pair has met since the Trump administration took office in January.
The US defence chief will outline America’s “new ambitions for Indo-Pacific security” in a keynote speech on Saturday, against a backdrop of concern about the direction of US-China rivalry, after the Trump administration has used its opening months to withdraw from multilateral organisation such as the Paris Agreement, withdraw foreign aid, and wage a trade war that has upended supply chains and shaken alliances.
Marles, in a speech to be delivered as part of a ministerial roundtable, will warn that the global arms control regime from the Cold War era has fallen into “dangerous decline”, with a key treaty between the US and Russia on nuclear proliferation due to expire next year.
“This leaves no legally binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the two largest nuclear powers for the first time since 1972,” Marles is expected to say.
“China’s decision to pursue rapid nuclear modernisation and expansion, which aims in part to reach parity with or surpass the United States, is another reason the future of strategic arms control must be revitalised. And that is a difficult and daunting project.”
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