Australia's key ally has gone rogue – and Trump has us expertly wedged. We need a plan B

The Guardian

02-03-2025

The Atlantic alliance, which has protected peace in western Europe for almost 80 years, however imperfectly, is evaporating before our eyes in real time.
We would be deluded not to realise this has the most profound and alarming implications for Australia and consequences for which we are not prepared.
In the months before Pearl Harbour in December 1941, and America's declaration of war on Japan, then US President Franklin D Roosevelt delivered his landmark Four Freedoms speech.
In freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear, Roosevelt articulated the universal fundamentals of democracy and his nation's leadership role in promoting them across the world, for all people.
As Australians, we have aligned ourselves as a nation with these values before and since.
Yet as we further embed that relationship with the bipartisan, minimally debated, multibillion-dollar Aukus arrangement, it's impossible to avoid the obvious divergence in values that is beginning to emerge.
To ignore it is wilfully naive.
In the few short weeks since his inauguration, Donald Trump and his myrmidons have: defamed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, lied about Russian president Vladimir Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine, started to withdraw US military support in defence of Ukraine as a democratic nation, rewarded Putin's murderous autocracy by starting to normalise relations with Moscow, even siding with Russia, Belarus and North Korea at the UN, excluded Ukraine from US discussions about the war with Russia and heavied Ukraine to hand over its critical minerals to the US in exchange for respectful treatment in any peace negotiations.
And that was just the start – as it turned out, insult was added to injury quite literally in the Oval Office where Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, attempted to bully Zelenskyy into accepting a ceasefire without the very collective security guarantee that is Nato's foundation principle.
The Trump administration is threatening to abandon the very basis of Nato (the institution that has guaranteed security for western Europe for more than 70 years): that an attack on any member nation is an attack on all while meanwhile interfering in Germany's domestic politics by playing footsie with Europe's authoritarian right and further weakening Ukraine's bargaining position by telling Kyiv to give up hope of regaining territory seized by Russia.
In short, Trump has thrown a beleaguered democracy which shares Australia's values to the wolves and trashed the longstanding principle of collective security with the nations of Nato – its closest allies – while bullying the EU.
Concurrently, we begin the process of handing over billions for submarines that the Americans may never deliver (but we think we need) and we tiptoe a fraught line to avoid offending the mercurial Trump for fear that the slightest provocation will give him the weak excuse to retaliate with trade tariffs on some of our more important industries, such as steel and aluminium.
In short, while our key ally has gone rogue, he has us expertly wedged.
Meanwhile he's also upended the global order by freezing the US foreign aid budget, something our government has limply said is a matter for the US administration.
We have not found the courage to criticise this gross breach of humanitarianism even as we attempt to patch up a few holes through our own meagre aid program amid stories of people dying as aid-funded medical programs are shut down overnight. There are also warnings of mass starvation in places such as Sudan where entire communities are reliant on food aid that is no longer being delivered.
At what point do we say something to those who we've been following into wars for the last 100 or so years?
Meanwhile we can only cross our fingers that with predictability all but lost, the president will stick with Anzus and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – the bedrock of our national security matrix – and Aukus.
Let's be clear: the Trump administration's actions undermine our national security and represent an assault on our democratic values.
And the implications should be deeply troubling for everyone: for policy makers, defence planners, politicians and everyday citizens.
On brand, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has played the small target and distanced himself from Trump even as we handed over $800m to the US for submarines its naval establishment admits it cannot currently deliver.
'Something for nothing,' you can almost hear Trump saying. 'Best deal ever.'
Meanwhile, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who loves to deploy a Trumpism whenever he can manage it, declared the president had simply got it wrong, on Ukraine at least.
This is the same Peter Dutton who declared Trump 'shrewd', 'a big thinker' with 'gravitas', who imitates the Doge and DEI stunts and weaponises social division.
Where does he now stand on Aukus (as the defence minister at the time of its announcement) considering Washington's dismissal of the value of treaty partners and abandoning of a fellow democracy?
Based on what the Trump administration has done to Ukraine and threatened to do to Nato, along with trade threats to allies such as Canada and rumours the Canadians may be kicked out of the Five Eyes, how can we have confidence the US will continue to be our defensive shield via Anzus or deliver the required hardware via Aukus which makes us more dependent on the US for our national security than ever before?
These are obvious questions that need asking, and while the major parties will ignore them, I expect the independent crossbench won't.
In these parlous circumstances it is even more important to ask: what is our plan B?
The answer from what I know, is there is none.
This has always been unsatisfactory, now it is downright derelict and the challenge for our defence planners is to tell us how we will defend ourselves if the US won't, as Trump has already made crystal clear to Ukraine and its allies in Europe.
Our voters deserve nothing less.
As a former US-based foreign correspondent, I covered the election of Trump in 2016 and his first administration.
It's clear to me that he responds only to strength.
As Australians, all those years ago we aligned ourselves with Roosevelt's freedoms of speech and worship, from want and fear, the very underpinnings of democracy.
It's time to reassert those values.
Because the question today is: does Trump's America still align with us?
Zoe Daniel is the independent member for Goldstein and a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. She is also a three-time ABC foreign correspondent and Washington bureau chief