The arrogance and ineptitude of the Trump administration in seeking the integration of Australia into its America First strategy in the Indo-Pacific risk a political backlash in this country and even serious damage to the alliance relationship.
Consider the unfolding fiascos: the US imposes trade discrimination on Australia, allowing China, the architect of past trade coercion against us, to depict itself as the trade good guy – an unbelievable US own goal; a senior American official probes Australia’s reliability as an ally in a war over Taiwan, a totally unjustified demand of Australia; the understandable US review of AUKUS is consumed by damaging reports, leaks and rumours from Washington, raising alarms the review may seek changes designed to disadvantage Australia; and the fully justified US demand that Australia spend more on defence risks being caught in a presentation trap that only reinforces Anthony Albanese’s myopic messaging that he won’t buckle to Trumpian intimidation.
There is nobody managing this alliance. Nobody on either side. Misunderstanding and confusion is the order of the day. The absence of a Trump-Albanese meeting to provide firm political guidelines is a grievous omission. The Prime Minister making a second visit to China without seeing Donald Trump isn’t just a diplomatic mistake but fuels risks for alliance policy.
In the long run, relations will probably settle. Probably. The phone contact between Trump and Albanese has been positive. Most of the contact at official levels seems cordial. But the big question remains unanswered in a Trump administration afflicted by rival outlooks – just what changes does Trump expect from Australia as part of his still unarticulated Asia strategy? Has Trump even worked that out? Probably not.
At present, the two sides are talking past each other. The Trump administration has asked Australia for assurances on Taiwan that we cannot give, while Australia has refused to give the assurances on defence spending that we should give.
The management chasm is shocking. The focal point is the review of the AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement conducted by senior Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, a China hawk who wants the US to prioritise strategic deterrence against China and is fixated on having America’s regional allies lift their defence contribution.
The Australian blunder is obvious. It is the stubborn, untenable refusal to signal substantial increases in our defence budget, a policy change sought by most of Australia’s defence experts.
Colby has concluded Australia is not properly financing AUKUS because it lacks a defence budget that meets the submarine program consistent with expanding other defence resources. This is a lethal conclusion embraced by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has called for Australia to lift spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP.
This is not a sovereignty issue. There needs to be a Trump-Albanese deal on this question. The concern is that this conflict might only escalate with Albanese obsessed about the political optics of appearing to concede to Trump.
The longer this issue is unresolved, the more dangerous it gets and the more it will spill into other aspects of the alliance. Labor should see this as a national interest issue, not a domestic political opportunity to exploit.
The bigger risk, however, is that the Trump administration will plunge into its own brand of alliance follies over AUKUS as it seeks to reconcile Colby’s convictions with Trump’s instincts.
The Pentagon tried to clear the air with an official spokesperson telling this newspaper at the weekend: “The Secretary of Defence directed Elbridge Colby in his role as the Under Secretary of Defence for Policy to undertake this review. The point of the review is to make sure that this agreement is structured and implemented in a way that aligns with President Trump’s objectives and priorities.”
The review is not designed to kill the agreement. The purpose is “making sure that it (AUKUS) is something we can make good on” but “there are challenges” and “we should take them head-on”.
In short, the review is a bigger event than realised and that’s surely a plus. But the Financial Times report of July 12 launched a new red flag, saying Colby had been pushing Japan and Australia on commitments in relation to a war over Taiwan.
The same report, however, said “this request caught Tokyo and Canberra by surprise because the US itself does not give a blank-cheque guarantee to Taiwan”.
This is the pivotal point. Given Trump’s stance of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan, allies such as Australia can’t be asked to offer strategic clarity. The Americans can’t ask Australia to do something the US won’t do.
This newspaper knows for a fact that Colby has raised the Taiwan issue in talks with Australian officials – and got a sharp rebuttal. The notion that the US government would impose a Taiwan test in a considered AUKUS review seems preposterous, but the lesson from the Trump era is never to dismiss the preposterous.
Let’s deconstruct what such a US insistence would involve.
First, it is a repudiation of Australia as a sovereign democracy to expect any statement of intent, let alone a guarantee from our government, to promise its forces and future submarines to support the US in a Taiwan conflict. No government, Labor or Coalition, would make such a commitment. Albanese made this plain in his response to questions on Sunday. Obviously, Albanese cannot commit any future Labor or Coalition government anyway. Beyond that, the Australian public would never endorse such a commitment.
Second, the idea is strategically absurd since it overlooks the possible trigger for conflict – military action provoked by a Taiwan push for independence would be entirely different from an unprovoked military decision by Beijing. The cause of the conflict would be seminal in Australian calculations, thereby rendering any supposed guarantee null and void.
Third, such a request from the US would destroy mutual trust between alliance partners. Has the US ever asked any other ally for such a statement of intent in any other circumstances involving future military conflict? Any such request would prove the US lack of trust in Australia as an ally – despite a century of shared military support, despite the existence of joint facilities in this country stretching back decades and despite Australia’s more recent provisions for US air, naval and ground forces.
The cry from the local critics of the US alliance and AUKUS would thunder across the land: Trump doesn’t trust us – and if he doesn’t trust us, then we can’t trust him. A totally self-defeating situation.
Of course, it is true that the joint facilities mean Australia would be involved from the outset in any conflict – but this is not Colby’s question. His concern is force deployment.
Fourth, this would be a significant change to the AUKUS agreement, never required when it was sealed with the Biden administration by the president himself. Obviously, it would shake Australia’s trust in the agreement.
Such a US request also would verify there was no deal when AUKUS was finalised that Australia was locked into a US-led military force participation in a conflict over Taiwan. It is now apparent that repeated assertions by critics to this effect are demonstrably false.
The point, as Scott Morrison has endlessly said, is that AUKUS was devised to strengthen US-led strategic deterrence against China involving both US and Australian force projection.
The related mistake by the Albanese government has been its reluctance to present and champion AUKUS for what it is – strategic deterrence. Don’t think Colby isn’t fully alert to this omission.
The irony, as current Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025 shows – with the US and Australia involved along with 35,000 military personnel from 19 nations – is the alliance is in sound operating condition.
The task facing leaders from both sides is to sustain this arrangement, not undermine it through strategic and political blunders and stupidity.
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