AUKUS in the Age of Trump 2.0
Canberra may hope that if Trump and his team don’t know Australia exists, then the next four years might go a little smoother. But there’s a $230 billion problem.
This week Australia’s Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles had his first phone call with the United States’ newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The call was a conventional formal exchange of pleasantries and an attempt to build a rapport with a counterpart from a new government.
In the past, such a call by an
Australian defense minister would be one of the easier tasks the
minister would have to perform. The friendly relations between the two
countries, the long and intimate history of defense cooperation, and the
broad shared worldview would make for casual and congenial
conversation. But with the return of Donald Trump to the White House and
the eccentric choice
of Hegseth as his defense secretary, such a call comes with a certain
amount of dread. Placing Australia in the line of sight of the new
administration carries the risk of an unpredictable and potentially
inhospitable response.
Australia’s bumbling approach to acquiring a new submarine fleet has placed the country in a further pickle. After rejecting both Japanese and French submarines, Australia made a huge strategic bet on the United States to acquire a fleet of nuclear power submarines. The bet assumed that Trump’s first term in the White House was an aberration: that once he was gone he wouldn’t return, and that the American public would – having flirted with Trump’s chaotic style – return to a more sober and prudent form of politics.
In broad strategic terms, the acquisition of nuclear power submarines makes sense for Australia. It is an island continent, with a vast shore to defend – much of which is under-developed. Australia is also a trading nation that is heavily reliant on the sea lines of communication, particularly through the South China Sea and up to Northeast Asia. An active blue water capability to deter threats to both itself and its trading routes is logical.
Yet the process to obtain such hardware is now reliant on a U.S. that is capricious and vengeful, a U.S. that is now displaying an extraordinary hostility toward its allies and friends. Will Australia suffer the same fate as Canada, Denmark, Mexico, and Colombia?
Trump may see the AUKUS deal as financially advantageous to the U.S, but his America First agenda may equally see the first component of delivering three “off the shelf” Virginia-class submarines to Australia as a capability that could otherwise be American. While Trump will be gone by the time of their expected delivery (bar a greater assault on the U.S. Constitution), it would be well within his mafia-style of governance to shake down Australia for more money to complete the construction. Any attempt by Canberra to point to the contract details may risk Trump ripping the contracts up altogether.
Does this leave Australia with another four years of walking on eggshells? Or does Australia follow former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s advice and stand up to Trump – as this is the only thing he respects? Trump has already shown signs that he is willing to dramatically escalate threats against friends in order to get what he wants. What is Australia’s appetite for risk should Trump’s wrath find itself directed at Canberra?
Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton told David A. Graham of The Atlantic recently that rather than Trump’s actions having a focus on U.S. national security, “Trump is the only thing he’s interested in.” It is this global-scale ego and lust to have the world fall at his feet that will rip at the seams of the U.S. web of alliances and the post-World War II order that the U.S. created – that both the U.S. and Australia have prospered from so greatly.
Following his call with Hegseth, Marles stated that “American leadership has underpinned the global rules-based order since the end of World War II. It’s absolutely clear to me that we will see a continuation of that under the Trump administration.”
This seems to be more wishful thinking than reality. It’s a line that the Australian government will use to encourage the Trump administration to see itself in this way, but one that is increasingly difficult to deliver with a straight face. Despite an attempt to claim the relationship is “business as usual,” there won’t be much smiling in Canberra over the next four years, just increasingly furrowed brows.