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The country has doubled down on its defense relationship with the United States in recent years. President Trump’s treatment of allies is prompting some to question the wisdom of that path.
April 4, 2025, 2:36 a.m. ET
Australia is one of America’s closest allies; the two countries have fought alongside each other in every major conflict since World War I. Jake Sullivan, former President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said in January that the two had effectively entered a “strategic marriage.”
Lately, though, Australians have been feeling rather like a spouse who awoke one morning to find a complete stranger lying next to them. Many have watched, aghast, how President Trump has treated other longstanding allies such as Canada and Europe, cavalierly threatening their economies with hefty tariffs and casting doubt on the U.S. commitment to protect NATO members.
Australia itself was hit this week with a 10 percent tariff on its exports to the United States, in addition to a 25 percent tariffs on its steel and aluminum. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday said the moves would “have consequences for how Australians see this relationship.”
All this has Australians taking a hard look their own heavily intertwined and dependent military relationship with the United States — even as China is making its growing military might felt in the region — and asking if they are in need of a “Plan B.”
“We are dealing with a very different America,” Malcolm Turnbull, a former conservative prime minister, said in an interview. “We’re dealing with an America whose values no longer align with ours.”
As a nation of 27 million stretched over a geographical expanse that rivals the continental United States, Australia has always relied on a powerful partner for its defense — first Britain, then the United States.
