As I wrote recently, it’s fast becoming obvious that the Trump administration has no faith in the Albanese government as an ‘ally’. As badly as the US needs a reliable ally in the South Pacific, they’re not getting one under the Marxist mob of student-politics children currently running Australia. Not since Whitlam has Australia been cursed with such a weak, venal government.
The Trump administration is treating the Albanese government with the disdain it deserves. Alone of major Western leaders, Albanese is yet to meet with President Trump – no doubt to Albo’s great relief, given the public bollixing The Donald metes out in the Oval Office to those leaders who so fully deserve it. Even US Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth is conspicuously avoiding his Australian counterpart, Deputy PM Richard Marles.
It looks as though the penny is finally dropping in Canberra – and the panic’s setting in. Just as Europe panicked when Trump threatened to pull out of NATO if the EU didn’t start pulling its weight, the Albanese government is realising that it’s all fun and games until the Big Guy walks and leaves you to fend for yourself.
The Pentagon has added to the mystery surrounding Richard Marles’s snap visit to Washington this week, revealing he had only a “happenstance encounter” with US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
A US Defence Official said in a statement that the pair had no formal meeting.
So, Marles managed to collar a – no doubt desperately running away – Hegseth in a corridor.
Mr Marles had said he was travelling to the US to meet with Mr Hegseth, but ended up having political meetings with JD Vance, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Well, now we know who drew the short straws in the Cabinet Room.
The lack of a meeting between the pair nearly eight months into Mr Trump’s term comes as the prime minister pushes back at the Trump administration’s demand for Australia to lift defence spending.
There are also question marks over the AUKUS submarine partnership amid an “America First” review of the deal agreed by the Biden administration to sell Australia at least three Virginia-class nuclear submarines.
Hence the sudden panic in Canberra.
Mr Marles’s trip was hastily arranged, requiring the cancellation last weekend of a series of meetings he was due to have in Canberra this week.
So, all those months of Albanese’s blatherskite that AUKUS is going swimmingly is brutally exposed. The Yanks know Albanese’s Australia is a weak, cheapskate socialist ally: like Europe, banking on there always being an America to keep them safe while they squander vast fortunes on socialist failures.
Marles surely didn’t charge off to Washington expecting to be told the AUKUS review concluded that, alone among America’s allies, Australia is doing brilliantly on defence. The penny has finally dropped – AUKUS is in trouble.
The Americans think we are under-investing in defence, that our preparations for the nuclear-powered submarines are insufficient and that we differ on how to deal with an increasingly aggressive China.
The Americans are right, except on one thing. The difference on China goes far deeper: where successive Australian governments and big business have made us dangerously reliant on China’s money, Anthony Albanese brings an ideological deference to the communist dictatorship not seen since Gough Whitlam kowtowed to the Mao regime at the height of the Cultural Revolution.
An immediate reason for Marles’s trip is to rescue the next Australia-US Ministerial Consultations meeting, due to be held in Australia in September. That’s the annual meeting of the foreign and defence ministers with their US counterparts.
Two or three meetings have been missed in 35 years – the 1990 Gulf War and Covid caused cancellations. But AUSMIN is the key alliance management meeting. In 2025, given the emerging differences between Australia and the US, it is essential […]
Would anyone expect Hegseth and Rubio to fly 24 hours to Australia to be lectured by Penny Wong on the value of recognising Palestine, by Albanese on our “stabilised” relationship with China, and by Marles on how our 2 per cent defence spend is better directed than any other ally? […]
The government’s arrogance and overconfidence is blinding it to the reality of a serious alliance split with the US.
No doubt Albo’s puppet master in Beijing is very happy with how events are turning out, though.
