Australia managed the first presidential term of Donald Trump as well as any nation. Now it can also manage the second term well.
In doing so, we must work with friends in our region to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains the main US strategic focus. That also means stressing to Trump and his team that Ukraine’s survival is an Indo-Pacific priority.
Trump will demand more of allies, and we should revel in doing more to attend to our own security and that of others.
In 2017, Australia quickly understood that invoking its long friendship with the United States was not enough in dealing with the then newly elected Trump. He expected to see ongoing efforts in helping the US with its burdens. And we could show that: we had begun, in the national interest, taking stronger security measures against China and were paying an economic price for them.
It helped, too, that we were increasing our defence budget. Altogether, our relationship with the United States actually strengthened during Trump’s first administration.
In his first term, Trump turned US strategic attention decisively towards China. This was deeply in Australia’s interest. The US focus on the Indo-Pacific has continued through the administration of President Joe Biden, and we want it to continue in the coming Trump term.
It was also in the interests of such friends as India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, and still is. So, we should together send the reminder to Trump and his team that the Indo-Pacific is the main game, particularly because China is the captain of the totalitarian Axis.
In the face of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea working together, we should heed Edmund Burke’s clarion call of ‘when bad men combine, the good must associate else they will fail one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle’.
Vitally, Australia and its friends, including other Five Eyes members, should ensure Trump’s team knows that what happens to Ukraine matters for all of us. Trump and his future vice president, JD Vance, have campaigned on quickly stopping the war in Ukraine.
Australia cannot be silent on how damaging a victory for Vladimir Putin would be for Indo-Pacific countries, which would lose trust in the US and its allies and fall into fatalistic acceptance that China will dominate the region.
North Korea’s entry into the fight may have been the turning point needed to ensure the Trump team knows that Ukraine cannot be isolated from Indo-Pacific interests and that a victory for Putin would be a victory for his no-limits partner, Xi Jinping. This victory would be a setback for Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Australia and the US itself.
Trump’s decision in his first term to compete with China included economic action, setting the West on a path away from policies that misjudged trade and financial links with China as proof of stability.
There can be no stability when the Axis regimes’ routine is destabilisation. They sometimes pause their campaigns, not in good faith but to seek compromises from us while they reload for their next phase of attacks on global rules.
So, we should work with the new Trump administration to further reduce economic dependence on China. For that, Trump has the right instincts.
He has the right instincts on China’s exploitation of the information domain, too. Australia should encourage him to continue what he started in applying sanctions and tariffs on the Chinese tech sector.
Australia and the US must strive together to counteract China’s abuse of the information domain to divide our nations, turn them against each other, undermine our democratic institutions and shift the global order. The tech sector and digital world should be high on the Australian list for engagement with the Trump team.
Both AUKUS and NATO are vital and must be strengthened. The US’s partners within those groupings will need to show Trump they are pulling their weight.
AUKUS should thrive, since Britain and especially Australia are already spending on it and will spend more, deepening their cooperation with the US. NATO members will likely start with a lesser goal of just keeping their alliance together. Most will have to prove they will not fall back into military slumber, leaving the US to do everyone’s job.
For them, Australia and other US friends in the Western Pacific, Trump’s expectations will mean, above all, that they must spend more on defence. They should do so willingly.
Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru’s foreign policy adviser, Takashi Kawakami, said recently that an America that demands more from allies could be an opportunity for Japan to become a ‘truly independent country … and create an environment that allows Japan to defend its sovereignty with its own strategy against foreign forces.’
It’s an argument that Australia should consider. It doesn’t mean isolation and terminating alliances with the US but, rather, strengthening ourselves to strengthen those alliances. We become stronger individually and collectively.
