Bob Carr says the Quad has not lived up to its promise, warns Australia is a US ‘client state’

Former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr has sounded the alarm on Joe Biden’s ‘cognitive decline’ and warned of greater US unreliability in future.

Former foreign minister Bob Carr says Joe Biden’s failure to turn up for the upcoming Quad meeting in Sydney is further proof of his unreliability on the international stage.

Former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr has criticised the Quad grouping, warned Australia was reducing itself to a US “client state” and argued America was increasingly unpredictable after Joe Biden pulled-the-plug on an Australian trip scheduled for next week.

Following the cancellation of the Quad leaders’ meeting in Sydney, Mr Carr issued a scathing critique of the US and warned a second term for Joe Biden could see the President suffering from “frailty and cognitive decline” with public appearances at major events handed over to the “unsteady hand” of US Vice President, Kamala Harris.

In the critique posted to Twitter, Mr Carr also took aim at the Republican Party by warning it had retreated towards isolationism and that — even if Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential bid was unsuccessful — the party would remain “unfriendly to NATO and fond of Putin.”

Mr Carr, who has previously led the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology in Sydney, tweeted on Wednesday: “Prepare for Biden’s next term when frailty and cognitive decline may prevent president’s attendances at any forums leaving things to the unsteady hand of Harris.”

The US President has cancelled his upcoming appearance in Sydney for the Quad meetings, instead choosing to return home to Washington.

Foreign minister during the Gillard government from 2012-13, Mr Carr told The Australian he was concerned that Canberra had mismanaged the relationship with America under successive governments by not sufficiently standing up for Australian interests.

“Australia is suffering from being too compliant, too unpushy, too like a client state,” Mr Carr said. “Biden won’t come here, and apparently flicks off our Prime Minister’s submission about (Julian) Assange.”

While he argued the Quad could be a useful vehicle, he warned it had failed to deliver on its promise.

“We were encouraged by the White House to talk-up the Quad and invest it with more substance than it has. It hasn’t even delivered on its promise for an Asian vaccine,” he said. “Act like a client state, get treated like one. We’ve got out of the habit of fruitful arguments with our coalition partner.”

Mr Carr argued that Australian policy makers now needed to “factor in a serious uncertainty about projected American behaviour” following Mr Biden’s withdrawal from the Quad leaders’ meeting and what he argued was an Australian naivety about the limits of US power.

The criticism of the Quadrilateral security grouping between Australia, the US, India and Japan from the ALP elder statesman follows the comments of former Labor prime minister Paul Keating who publicly trashed the AUKUS framework between Australia, the US and the UK as the “worst deal in history”.

A spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Penny Wong told The Australian: “We do not agree with Mr Carr’s remarks.”

“President Biden is a great friend of Australia. We appreciate that friendship – and the role the US plays in the region and in the world.”

Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jennings also rejected Mr Carr’s views, saying that the Quad had delivered “very well” and there was “extensive co-operation happening between the four countries in everything from vaccine development through to critical minerals.”

“The fact that it has been driven by the four leaders has given the Quad real momentum,” he said. “I’m afraid I think Bob Carr has just entered into the world of critics of America and of Australia’s relationship with America.”

“Typically, the people who argue we are mismanaging the relationship want Australia to be more accommodating of China,” he said. “I think Australia is best off taking a very hard-eyed strategic assessment of our interests which is not to accommodate an aggressive authoritarian one party state.”

“It astonishes me that anyone can see co-operation with China has more attractive than co-operation with one of the world’s most successful democracies.”

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said that Mr Carr’s commentary represented an “extraordinary attack that leaves almost no part of the US alone, with counter-productive swipes at the current administration, potential alternatives, US democracy and our alliance.”

“Hot on the heels of Paul Keating’s assault against the US, these Bob Carr comments demonstrate a strong strain of anti-alliance sentiment within Labor ranks, which poses real risks ahead of Labor’s national conference.”

Senator Birmingham said that to “undermine the value of the Quad is to promote a world where Japan and Australia would be happy for India and the US to go their own ways, leaving our region grossly unbalanced and far less secure.”