Sarah Myatt | Australian Foreign Policy Fellow
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, President Joe Biden, and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio at Quadrilateral Summit in September 2024. Image sourced from Biden White House via Flickr.
The American peoples’ re-election of Donald Trump to be their 47th President sent shockwaves around the globe, overwhelming the Australian news cycle. The Australian foreign policy world has begun to heed warnings of a return to the unpredictable and transactional diplomacy that marked Trump’s first term. Australia’s traditional reliance on the American alliance is threatened by Trump’s “America First” approach, underscoring that Australia must pursue stronger relationships in the Indo-Pacific to safeguard our interests, or cling to the Americans at our peril.
Many consider the game of predicting Trump’s inherently unpredictable foreign policy an impossible one. However, to imagine the rest of the second Trump administration, we can only turn to the first. Notable for its isolationist and protectionist attitude, Trump reneged on international commitments, including the Paris Climate Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the President labelled “job killing”. In winding back multilateralism worldwide, we can only see Trump 2.0 as even less restrained than the first. America tariffing its closest allies and abandoning the international rules-based systems are changing the foreign policy landscape in which Australia has gotten very comfortable, if not complacent. Instead, Australia must pursue the opportunity to emerge as a stable middle power through leveraging modern and alternative diplomatic strategies in the Indo-Pacific.
The Australia-US bilateral relationship
Despite having been the US’ most loyal modern ally, Australia must now step up to a more proactive role in ensuring stability and fostering partnerships. Trump’s carelessness with international cooperation threatens Australia’s own backyard. With his “Make America Great Again” doctrine, he is sceptical of alliances and previously proved careless with collective defence. His first-term instigation of a US-China trade war saw Australian exports become collateral damage, with the OECD cautioning that the revival of this conflict could cost the Australian economy AUD$30 billion, or 1.25 per cent of GDP. Evidently, Australia can no longer take the economic security of stable, American-led global governance for granted.
While our trading, island nation braces for the impact of threatened tariffs as hopes for an exception have been dashed, the future of our country’s security interests is unclear. Generally, Congressional and Senate Republicans have broadly supported the AUKUS pact despite their leader’s penchant for ripping up such agreements and recent apparent forgetfulness about the pact’s existence. However, as economic antagonisation, particularly antagonisation of China, ramps up, Australia’s security focus must be on one region: the Indo-Pacific.
Australia’s future in the Indo-Pacific
Amid American unpredictability, the Indo-Pacific is becoming a multipolar battleground, and Australia must step up to a more proactive role to ensure stability and foster genuine partnerships. The actions of China in the region – including expansion in the South China Sea and the broadening Belt and Road initiative– have long stoked Australian anxiety. However, our foreign policymakers faced a wake-up call in 2022, when the Solomon Islands signed a security pact with China. Forcing a realisation that we must treat our Pacific neighbours with seriousness, the Albanese government has pursued a welcome diplomatic push in the Pacific.
Despite cordial diplomatic exchanges, Pacific nations continue to plead with Australia to pursue stronger climate action and productive aid partnerships. Many of these nations face the imminent threat of their nations disappearing underwater. The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union, a 2024 agreement offering residency to Tuvaluans displaced by climate change, reflects the security and economic success possible for Australia when we pursue genuine partnerships in our region. It is now clear that as a stable, democratic, middle power in the region, Australia must now carry the torch of multilateralism forward.
Future Diplomatic Opportunities
Pursuing engagement in the Pacific presents opportunities for creative, unconventional and culturally responsive diplomacy which connects Australia to our Pacific family. The emerging world of sports diplomacy has proven to be a successful pathway, with collaboration between the governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea producing an AUD$600 million deal for a team representing PNG to enter the NRL. The partnership has been touted not only as bringing commercial closeness but fostering national unity and trust. Such creative diplomacy serves as an effective vehicle to build concrete security advancement too, with a security deal being signed alongside the sporting agreement. The agreement affirmed Australia’s place as PNG’s top security partner and is a meaningful countering of Chinese expansion.
Australia’s diplomatic strategy must pursue multilateralism in order to embed democratic values in the security and economic architecture of the 21st century Indo-Pacific. Ongoing engagement with the Pacific-led regional organisation, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), offers collaborative opportunities, with ad-hoc Forum Ministerial Meetings a well-placed opportunity to address the unpredictable challenges the region is facing. Australia’s contribution of 36 per cent of the PIF’s budget should be maintained or increased as a crucial, tangible show of support for Pacific multilateralism. Further, the government’s recent negotiation with ANZ to have the bank maintain its services in the Pacific demonstrates the potential to merge commercial and multilateral goals in pursuit of stronger Indo-Pacific engagement.
Trump 2.0 offers a stark reminder that Australia can no longer afford to depend on the whims of a now unpredictable ally. The strategic and economic challenges facing Australia in the world of a Trump presidency demand that we prioritise engagement with the Indo-Pacific, fostering our long-term interests. Through focusing on regional partnerships, encouraging multilateralism, and addressing regional challenges including climate change, Australia can be a stabilising force in an increasingly fragmented world.
Sarah is an emerging voice in Australian international relations and public policy. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Economics and Political and International Studies at the University of Melbourne. A highly accomplished student, she has had her academic work published in peer-reviewed journals and was recently the winner of Queens College's Foreign Affairs Competition. Sarah is passionate about uplifting young Australian voices and looks forward to the opportunities of this fellowship.
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