Australia is mourning the US relationship it had before Donald Trump,
analysts say.
Three months into his presidency, Trump's sternly nationalistic and
isolationist rhetoric has Australia questioning whether it can continue to
count on the US, testing one of the world's closest alliances.
"There's a great sense of loss about the America that we thought
underpinned the security order (and) that the America we relied on might not be
there," Mathew Davies, head of the international Relations Department at
the Australian National University, told CNN.
Trump is due to meet Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in New
York City Thursday, their first meeting since their heated phone conversation in February,
which shook the two countries' relationship.
Since then high-profile US officials have worked hard to smooth tensions,
including a visit by Vice President Mike
Pence in April, but many questions remain ahead of Trump and
Turnbull's meeting.
"All of those values we thought were settled and agreed, are they
actually agreed?" Davies said.
"What is Australia's role in the Asia Pacific? Should we continue to
see ourselves as a close ally of the US or should we look at what Australia
wants?"
Australians 'concerned' by Trump presidency
Australia's leaders were not ready for a Trump presidency, former Liberal
Party leader John Hewson told CNN.
"I was amazed, they didn't even have a number to call him to
congratulate him. They had to get (former golfer) Greg Norman to give them a phone number to call
Trump," he said.
Australians as a whole
appeared apprehensive about a Trump presidency. According to a 2016 poll by the
Lowy Institute, almost half of the respondents said Australia should distance itself from the US
if Trump won, while only 42% said the US alliance was "very
important," the lowest in eight years.
A poll taken less than two weeks before November's election by Essential
polling found 79% of Australians would be
"concerned" by a Trump presidency.
"I think there's kind of a perverse fascination with this rogue in the
White House, but I think there's a lot of distrust about what that means,"
Sydney University Department of History professor James Curran told CNN.
He said that though the US-Australia alliance was still
"healthy," there were difficulties that needed to be resolved.
"While meeting on board an old aircraft carrier in the United States
will show a very close defense relationship, it shows a sentimental view of the
past rather than a close look at the troubles in the relationship going
forward," Curran said of the scheduled Trump-Turnbull meeting.
Two superpowers
A third of Australia's exports in 2015 were sent to China, worth approximately $62.3 billion.
Many experts have said Australia would be forced to choose between the two
superpowers, but Curran said Australia should maintain
relations with both.
"The more difficult question for Australia is how does it help the US
accept that China has its own strategic sphere in Asia and that shouldn't be
seen as a threat," he said.
While Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have struck increasingly warm rapport over
North Korea and Taiwan, the new US style of diplomacy could cause long-term
issues for Australia, Davies said.
"There's an accommodation between China and the US on the basis of
their immediate interest, or at least Trump's immediate interest ... the US
isn't defending the world order that we thought the US was there to
defend," he said.
"If the US is only ever going to be involved because it gets something
out of it, that's very different to being involved (over shared values)."
What would Australia do in war?
As the possibility of conflict on the Korean Peninsula looms and Trump
contemplates greater action against ISIS, Hewson said Australia needed to ask
itself if it would go back into war with a Trump-era America.
"The alliance always needs to be tested. I'm all for having a very
clear idea about our own national interest and not having to take sides if we
don't want to," Hewson said.
It is getting "harder and harder" for Australia to refuse US
requests for military aid, as US expectations of its ally grow, Curran said.
"We've now got US marines rotating through Darwin, so I think we need
to have that conversation about what extent America's expectations are going to
be realized," he said.
Hewson says it is time for Australia to pursue a new diplomacy, building
relations with its Asian neighbors, such as Indonesia and Japan, and moving
away from the US.
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