White House's thinly-veiled threat to Albanese over defense spending
Australia should boost its defense spending in line with NATO partners, according to a new diktat from the White House which sets Anthony Albanese on a collision course with Donald Trump , who he is yet to meet. Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - which Australia is not a part of - agreed to lift their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP over 10 years during a summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, this week.
The move was triggered by pressure from the US President who had has long called for European allies to boost their defense spending. It was a win for Trump who had his ego massaged at the meeting of world leaders when Nato Chief Mark Rutte referred to him as 'daddy'. But now the US Commander-in-Chief has indicated he expects his allies in the Asia-Pacific - including Australia - to also increase their defense funding.
'Yeah, look, if our allies in Europe and our NATO allies can do that, I think our allies and our friends in the Asia Pacific region can do it as well,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Friday. Ms Leavitt said she would leave the 'specific relations and discussions' for individual countries to Trump. This means that Albanese may be pressured to increase defense spending if he hopes to secure a carve-out from the punishing tariffs imposed by the US on imports, including a 50 percent levy on steel and aluminum.
He will also be hoping to shore up the $368bn AUKUS submarine deal, which is currently under threat from a 30-day review by the Pentagon. But Albanese rebuffed the call to increase defense spending on Friday morning, insisting his government would not deviate from the levels they outlined in the March budget, which aims to reach 2.3 per cent over the next ten years. 'We continue to invest in whatever capabilities Australia needs – we'll continue to do that,' Albanese told reporters.
'My job is to look after Australia's national interest, which includes our defense and security interests, and that's precisely what we are doing.' Spain was the only NATO member not to agree to lift its defense spending above 2.1 percent of GDP, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez arguing it was 'incompatible with our welfare state and our vision of the world'. This triggered Trump's ire, with the US President vowing to hit Spain with higher tariffs.
'They want a little bit of a free ride, but they'll have to pay it back to us on trade, because I'm not going to let that happen,' Trump said. Albanese's planned meeting with Trump at the G7 summit in Canada failed to eventuate when the US President had to dash back to Washington to deal with the Israel-Iran crisis. Many had expected him to go in Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles place to the NATO summit this week to secure a meeting but instead he stayed in Australian.
Marles risked Trump's ire by insisting Australia would not follow NATO members by lifting its defense spending to five percent of GDP. 'Look, obviously, a very significant decision has been made here in relation to European defense spending, and that is fundamentally a matter for NATO,' Marles said. 'We've gone through our own process of assessing our strategic landscape, assessing the threats that exist there, and the kind of defense force we need to build in order to meet those threats, to meet the strategic moment, and then to resource that.
Marles did not speak directly with Mr Trump, nor US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, despite intensive efforts by government officials to tee up a first face-to-face meeting of an Australian minister with the US President.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Mystery over alleged teen killer's activities at a café just minutes before he was arrested over the alleged murder of Universal Store CEO - as cops scour the business for clues
Bizarre footage has emerged of a teenager at a local café, shortly after he allegedly stabbed Universal Store CEO Greg Josephson to death during a house party at the millionaire's sprawling Brisbane home. A 15-year-old boy has been charged with one count of murder after Mr Josephson was found critically injured at the gathering attended by 30 teenagers on Thursday. Officers arrived at the six-bedroom 1930s Art Deco mansion in Clayfield, in Brisbane 's inner north, just after 8.15pm and found the CEO unresponsive upstairs. Police allege an altercation took place between the teenager and the father-of-three, who are believed to be known to each other. A household item was used in the alleged attack. Winter holidays run from June 28 to July 13 in Queensland, with private schools usually breaking up a few days earlier. CCTV footage from a café near Mr Josephson's mansion showed the alleged killer walking across a patio area while wringing his hands. The teen is understood to have sustained a hand injury in the alleged attack, the Courier Mail reports. He appeared smartly dressed in a button-up shirt and pants as he proceeded to squeeze his way into a narrow rubbish area at the back of the venue. He then appeared to create a barricade by moving several bins in front of him. Police arrested the 15-year-old about 8.15pm after he called triple zero. He was refused police bail and has been taken to hospital. The café has since remained a place of interest, with officers and a dog squad reportedly seen searching the area on Friday afternoon. For almost two decades, Mr Josephson was the director of the Brisbane-based Universal Store, which he established with his brother Michael in 1999. From one store in Carindale, the company has grown to 80 outlets in every state and territory of Australia, as a leader in youth and streetwear fashion with an annual revenue of more than $288million. The Josephson brothers sold the business for $100million in September 2018 to private equity investors Five V Capital, Catalyst Direct Capital Management and BBRC Worldwide, which had previously invested in Bras N Things. Universal Store Holdings was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in November 2020 and the brand has continued to grow since the Josephson brothers relinquished control almost seven years ago. Mr Josephson and his wife Tamra bought the Clayfield home for $1.91million in 2016. The couple embarked on a major renovation, with Mr Josephson explaining at the time how they had planned to 'create a huge garage with a tennis court above it'. 'We were looking for a big family home and this was in very original condition,' he told the Courier Mail earlier this month. The sprawling Oriel Road property had been on the market for just 43 days when Mr Josephson was allegedly murdered.
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Big Beautiful Bill AI provision brings together an unexpected group of critics
As Senate Republicans rush to pass their hodgepodge tax and spending package — the Big Beautiful Bill — controversy has arisen around an unusual provision: a 10-year moratorium on states passing their own laws regulating artificial intelligence. Congress has been slow to pass any regulation on AI, a rapidly evolving technology, leaving states to write their own laws. Those state laws largely focus on preventing specific harms, like banning the use deepfake technology to create nonconsensual pornography, to mislead voters about specific issues or candidates or to mimic music artists' voices without permission. Some major companies that lead the U.S. AI industry have argued that a mix of state laws needlessly hamstrings the technology, especially as the U.S. seeks to compete with China. But a wide range of opposition — including some prominent Republican lawmakers, child safety advocates and civil rights groups — say states are a necessary bulwark against a dangerous technology that can cause unknown harms within the next decade. The Trump administration has been clear that it wants to loosen the reins on AI's expansion. During his first week in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to ease regulations on the technology and revoke 'existing AI policies and directives that act as barriers to American AI innovation. And in February, Vice President JD Vance gave a speech at an AI summit in Paris that made clear that the Trump administration wanted to prioritize AI dominance over regulation. But a Pew Research Center study in April found that far more Americans who are not AI experts are more concerned about the risks of AI than the potential benefits. 'Congress has just shown it can't do a lot in this space,' Larry Norden, the vice president of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center, a New York University-tied nonprofit that advocates for democratic issues, told NBC News. 'To take the step to say we are not doing anything, and we're going to prevent the states from doing anything is, as far as I know, unprecedented. Especially given the stakes with this technology, it's really dangerous,' Norden said. The provision in the omnibus package was introduced by the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Texas Republican Ted Cruz. Cruz's office deferred comment to the committee, which has issued an explainer saying that, under the proposed rule, states that want a share of a substantial federal investment in AI must 'pause any enforcement of any state restrictions, as specified, related to AI models, AI systems, or automated decision systems for 10 years.' On Friday, the Senate Parliamentarian said that while some provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are subject to a 60-vote threshold to determine whether or not they can remain in the bill, the AI moratorium is not one of them. Senate Republicans said they are aiming to bring the bill to a vote on Saturday. All Senate Democrats are expected to vote against the omnibus bill. But some Republicans have said they oppose the moratorium on states passing AI laws, including Sens. Josh Hawley of Arkansas, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch Trump ally, posted on X earlier this month that, when she signed the House version of the bill, she didn't realize it would keep states from creating their own AI laws. 'Full transparency, I did not know about this section,' Greene wrote. 'We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years and giving it free rein and tying states' hands is potentially dangerous.' Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican on the Commerce Committee, has said she opposes the 10-year moratorium. 'We cannot prohibit states across the country from protecting Americans, including the vibrant creative community in Tennessee, from the harms of AI,' she said in a statement provided to NBC News. 'For decades, Congress has proven incapable of passing legislation to govern the virtual space and protect vulnerable individuals from being exploited by Big Tech.' State lawmakers and attorneys general of both parties also oppose the AI provision. An open letter signed by 260 state legislators expressed their 'strong opposition' to the moratorium. 'Over the next decade, AI will raise some of the most important public policy questions of our time, and it is critical that state policymakers maintain the ability to respond,' the letter reads. Similarly, 40 state attorneys general from both parties manifested their opposition to the provision in a letter to Congress. 'The impact of such a broad moratorium would be sweeping and wholly destructive of reasonable state efforts to prevent known harms associated with AI,' they wrote. A Brennan Center analysis found that the moratorium would lead to 149 existing state laws being overturned. 'State regulators are trying to enforce the law to protect their citizens, and they have enacted common sense regulation that's trying to protect the worst kinds of harms that are surfacing up to them from their constituents,' Sarah Meyers West, the co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, a nonprofit that seeks to shape AI to benefit the public, told NBC News. 'They're saying that we need to wait 10 years before protecting people from AI abuses. These things are live. They're affecting people right now,' she said. AI and tech companies like Google and Microsoft have argued that the moratorium is necessary to keep the industry competitive with China. 'There's growing recognition that the current patchwork approach to regulating AI isn't working and will continue to worsen if we stay on this path,' OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, wrote on LinkedIn. 'While not someone I'd typically quote, Vladimir Putin has said that whoever prevails will determine the direction of the world going forward.' 'We cannot afford to wake up to a future where 50 different states have enacted 50 conflicting approaches to AI safety and security,' Fred Humphries, Microsoft's corporate vice president of U.S. government affairs, said in an emailed statement The pro-business lobby Chamber of Commerce released a letter, signed by industry groups like the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Meat Institute, in support of the moratorium. 'More than 1,000 AI-related bills have already been introduced at the state and local level this year. Without a federal moratorium, there will be a growing patchwork of state and local laws that will significantly limit AI development and deployment,' they wrote. In opposition, a diverse set of 60 civil rights organizations, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to digital rights groups to the NAACP, have signed their own open letter arguing for states to pass their own AI laws. 'The moratorium could inhibit state enforcement of civil rights laws that already prohibit algorithmic discrimination, impact consumer protection laws by limiting the ability of both consumers and state attorneys general to seek recourse against bad actors, and completely eliminate consumer privacy laws,' the letter reads. The nonprofit National Center on Sexual Exploitation opposed the moratorium on Tuesday, especially highlighting how AI has been used to sexually exploit minors. AI technology is already being used to generate child sex abuse material and to groom and extort minors, said Haley McNamara, the group's senior vice president of strategic initiatives and programs. 'The AI moratorium in the budget bill is a Trojan horse that will end state efforts to rein in sexual exploitation and other harms caused by artificial intelligence. This provision is extremely reckless, and if passed, will lead to further weaponization of AI for sexual exploitation,' McNamara said.
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Canadian businesses seek certainty in US tariff war
Deal or no deal, what Wes Love wants is Toronto-area business, Taurus Craco, imports machinery from overseas and distributes it across North America, mainly to the United President Donald Trump's shifting tariffs on Canadian products have left him, like many independent business owners, unable to plan for the future."What has been creating indecision in the market is people don't know which way this is going to go," Mr Love told the BBC in June. "And in small businesses, indecision is killer." Taurus Craco was hit hard by the tariffs earlier this year when it was forced to shell out nearly C$35,000 ($25,500, £18,700) because a shipment to the US crossed the border a few minutes after one deadline."It is totally punitive. From a small business perspective, that's more than the cost that we spend on hydro and gas for the entire year," he though Trump paused that tariff a few hours later, Taurus Craco still had to pay. Refusing would mean no longer being allowed to transport its products into the US, Mr Love said."It's like dealing with the mob," he is in a tit-for-tat tariff war with its largest trading partner, faciing a series of levies, in particular on metals and auto. Since taking office in January, Trump has announced a series of import taxes on goods from other countries - arguing they will boost American manufacturing and protect jobs. The ensuing uncertainty has hit Canada's economy and intense talks between the two countries hit a snag on Friday. Prime Minister Mark Carney has called Trump's tariffs "unjust", and said while campaigning for the April election that the "old relationship" with the US is "over". Shortly after winning that election, the prime minister visited Washington DC, taking a more conciliatory message to the White House to launch talks on a new trade and security deal. A 16 July deadline since has been set to hash out that deal, and President Trump said at the recent G7 summit that he was optimistic the two countries could "work something out" on on Friday, Trump said he was cutting trade talks over Canada's digital services tax. "We are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately," he wrote on social has threatened to impose another round of retaliatory tariffs on the US if the talks aren't successful. Mr Love welcomes any prospect of a deal."Give us a set of rules and leave them alone and let us operate within those rules," he said."It's like sport, right? Everybody goes onto the field and you play to a set of rules, but you don't change the rules in the middle of the game." Trade, a sudden exit, Middle East conflict - five takeaways from G7'A stab in the back' - car workers in Canada hit out at US over tariffsThe reality behind Trump's incredible investment claimsWhat tariffs has Trump announced and why? Gaphel Kongtsa, international policy director at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said businesses are hopeful an agreement will bring stability. Thus far, they have had to navigate a very fluid landscape, he said, "where seemingly things get increased or decreased or added on without very much clear indication as to why".Canada is hugely reliant on trade with the US, with 75% of its exports heading south, according to Statistics economy has slowed significantly in the first quarter of 2025 as a result of trade war and the ensuing uncertainty - growing only 0.8% between 1 January and 31 March, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).It shrank 0.1% over a month in April. A timeline of the tariffs shows what a whirlwind few months it has 1 February, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on most Canadian imports, then suspended them for a month days later. They were re-imposed when that deadline expired, only to be again delayed. Not long after, he granted an exemption on all goods that were compliant with the current North American free trade deal, known as the USMCA. Then in March, the US imposed a global 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminium as well as on imported vehicles. This month, Trump raised the metals tariff to 50%. The manufacturing sector has been in the spotlight when it comes to the tariffs, but the service sector also is affected by the uncertainty, if not by the levies directly. Sam Gupta is the founder and CEO at ElevatIQ, a technology and management consultancy that operates out of Buffalo, New York, and in Gupta said most people don't think about the service sector during a period of uncertainty, calling it the "unloved stepchild" of the economy."The attention goes to all the manufacturing companies and the companies that are directly impacted by the supply chain," he said. Still, services - which encompass everything from finance to tourism - make up a huge proportion of Canada's economy, accounting for the vast majority of its exporters have not been hit as hard as manufacturing, but their outlook and confidence in the market is at the lowest level in years, according to data from the Canadian Chamber of while Ottawa has implemented several measures to provide relief to companies hit by the tariffs - including from funds raised by counter tariffs - the service sector has not received any compensation."We are not even in the conversation," Mr Gupta said. "We don't exist."He said his business is not financially struggling at the moment, but noted that inquiries for his firm's services were "down by 50%". "As far as our understanding goes, not a lot of businesses are thinking about these longterm investments right now. It just, they just are not in the mindset," he said."The biggest fear that we all have right now is, I don't know how long this is going to go. If it is going to be six months, a year, 18 months, we can still survive. But let's say this goes on for like two years, three years then oh, my goodness, it will be, really, really hard."This has been the toughest period for the industry in his 20-year career, as the sector faces a combination of challenges, he said. Mr Gupta recalled how easy it was for him to get a well-paying job early in his career. "Even when I was graduating, we were getting paid like crazy. And we were so arrogant that we would not even pick up calls from recruiters," he said."But now with AI, with tariffs, the economy, everything, everybody that I know is struggling," he said. Statistics Canada reports that 56% of all businesses that export to the US have taken measures to mitigate the impact of than 30% have delayed major investments and expenditures, while 25% sought alternative customers outside the Bank of Canada said on Wednesday that exports to the US dropped by more than 15% in April. Steel and aluminium exports were down by 25% and 11%, and the export of vehicles had fallen by 25%.But despite everything, Mr Love remains said businesses can navigate the challenges as long as the US does not keep changing its trade policy."We're entrepreneurs. We are full of piss and vinegar, as they would say," he said."And so we are doing everything that we possibly can to keep fighting. And I think we will be successful; we just need to know what the ground rules are."
