Former President Donald Trump was already the frontrunner to win November’s presidential election, with the assassination attempt on 13 July and his defiant response only increasing his chance of victory.
Global capitals, including Canberra, are abuzz with policymakers and experts anticipating a predictably unpredictable second Trump term. President Joe Biden’s dropping out of the presidential race on 21 July wouldn’t distract them from the need to get ready for a possible return of Trump.
But the unpredictability of a second Trump term doesn’t mean the former president is random or absent strategy. Trump would be better prepared than he was for his first time in office. Australia, therefore, has enough of a roadmap to use the next six months to plan for Trump 2.0, which would require Canberra to avoid any penchant for reactive thinking or falling into a flat-footed state of voyeurism.
Australia, and our Quad partners, fared relatively well through the first Trump administration by anticipating both those areas where we needed to defend ourselves and those on which we could cooperate. Just as US founding father Benjamin Franklin stated, ‘well done is better than well said’, Trump considers the actions of allies more important than words. That can help shape four main lessons to navigate potential sources of friction and opportunity over the next four years.
First, Australia should showcase its national security credentials.
Strategic rivalry with China, especially on technology, would be front and centre of a second Trump term.
Selective technological decoupling from China, including by restricting Beijing’s access to advanced technologies, has been a bright light of American bipartisanship, with Biden continuing and expanding Trump-era policies.
Given Trump has said he wants ‘total independence from China’ and to ‘stop China owning America’, we can expect further expansion of the technology-driven economic security agenda. Many of these measures are in Australia’s national interest, but Canberra will need to encourage protection of our respective and collective sovereignty, not mere protectionism.
When Australia became the first country to exclude ‘high-risk’ vendors—namely Huawei—from its 5G network in 2018, it did so to protect national critical infrastructure. The decision gained respect within the Trump White House and across Washington, given the call was made without knowing the US decision while understanding the likelihood of Beijing’s retaliation.
Australia’s 5G decision helped rally a global coalition to mitigate Chinese technology risks and address the shifting technological balance away from the US and its allies.
Meanwhile, Australia pursued broader reforms in areas such as foreign investment screening and countering foreign interference, in part to protect cutting-edge technologies.
Recently, Australia has boosted cyber security protections, revised export controls and worked on further measures to protect the technology sector from espionage.
Australia’s clear-eyed and front-footed approach to China provides a strong track record for productively engaging Trump and his team.
In doing so, it will be important to show how Australia’s recent diplomatic stabilisation with China has not changed Australia’s willingness to ‘disagree where we must’. This includes calling out Chinese state-backed behaviour that breaches international rules, like Australia recently leading an international coalition to attribute cyber espionage to Beijing.
Second, Australia should share the burden of deterring aggression.
Trump wants peace through strength. This includes countering adversaries as well as preventing allies from free-riding on US security guarantees.
Australia has a good message in terms of commitment to our own security and the alliance, which should help avoid the tough love directed at the likes of NATO members and South Korea in Trump’s first term. Defence spending is set to increase to around 2.3 percent of GDP within the decade. The 2024 National Defence Strategy sets out major strategy, force structure and capability reforms as Australia responds to the loss of a 10-year strategic warning time for conflict.
Australia and the US have expanded collaboration on Australian soil. This includes rotations of American and British submarines through HMAS Stirling near Perth from 2027, enhancing nearer-term collective deterrence in the region.
Australia plans to pump around $6 billion into US and British defence industrial capacity in the coming decade, a long-term play to support Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS Pillar I. Canberra should promote this significant investment to Trump every chance it gets. But history is short-lived and a Trump White House would back in allies and partners who showed an ongoing commitment to their own security.
Third, Australia should push AUKUS as a good deal.
Trump is transactional, a dealmaker.
Even if he supports some or all AUKUS elements, the partnership will require long-term political, institutional, regulatory and industrial effort across the US, Britain and Australia to succeed.
For Trump and his closest advisers, Australia would need to sell the partnership’s advantages in making Australia a more capable and lethal ally, bolstering regional defence supply chains, and contributing to US-led deterrence of conflict in the Indo-Pacific.
Australia would need to highlight AUKUS’s merits as a boon for US companies, rather than being a drain on their technology, industry capacity and workforce.
As defence and technology transfer reform legislation comes into effect, Australia would also need to continue assuring the State Department and others that US technology would be protected.
Trump has a history of tearing up or renegotiating agreements he judges as taking America for a ride. Australia should ensure Trump doesn’t see AUKUS as an American hand-out but a transaction that boosts US capability to muscle up to China or, at worst, as a deal he would have got more for, but which is necessary and one he will make even stronger.
Finally, and above all, Australia should be bold.
Early in a second Trump term, the value of our US partnerships should be reinforced, starting with Quad meetings that emphasise that the grouping was revived in 2017 under his presidency. These should be swiftly followed by AUKUS meetings to highlight the benefits to the US and to demonstrate Australian’s contributions to vital technology.
If Trump is re-elected, the Albanese government and its representatives in Washington—starting with ambassador Kevin Rudd—will have a job ahead of them. But, unlike 2016, there are no excuses to be underprepared.
