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DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media. I’m Daniel James, this is 7am.

For decades, Australian governments have followed a bipartisan rule: stick close to the United States. But this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appeared to break from that tradition; rejecting pressure from Washington, standing firm on defence spending in light of a demand to nearly double it and was vocal in his criticisms on Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium.

It’s a shift that signals a different approach to Australia’s national security; one that distances itself from America’s unpredictable foreign policy and increasingly fragile alliances.

Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper, Paul Bongiorno on why Albanese is stepping back from the US and what it means for Australia’s place in the world.

It’s Friday, June 6.

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Audio excerpt – Pete Hegseth:

“It is great to be here with the Deputy Prime Minister, get a chance to hang out. We're in touch regularly, just a long-standing, incredibly important partnership with our friends in Australia.”

DANIEL:

Paul, over the weekend Australia's Defence Minister Richard Marles met with his US counterpart Pete Hegseth. What do we know about that meeting?

PAUL:

Well, we know it was in the context of the Shangri-La Dialogue, which is a very high-powered meeting of government officials and military types held annually in Singapore.

Audio excerpt – Pete Hegseth:

“Under President Trump's leadership, the United States is committed to achieving peace through strength.”

PAUL:

Hegseth gave a speech on the Saturday, but on the Friday night, he did meet with Richard Marles, and put it on Marles that Australia should increase its defence spending as soon as possible to 3.5 per cent of our gross domestic product.

Audio excerpt – Pete Hegseth:

“I urge all of our allies and partners to seize this moment with us. Our defence spending must reflect the dangers and threats that we face today. Because deterrence doesn't come on the cheap. Just ask the American taxpayer.”

PAUL:

Marles in his press conference said that he was completely comfortable with the sentiment that the American expressed in terms of not only Australia but everyone else in Asia and in fact everyone else of the world should increase the defence spending. He didn't quibble in the broad with the view of Hegseth that China is becoming more and more of a military threat and people better get ready for it.

Audio excerpt – Richard Marles:

“What we have seen from China is the single biggest increase in military capability and build up in a conventional sense by any country since the end of the Second World War.”

PAUL:

Marles in his doorstop, which made headlines back home in Australia, said that he was totally up for the conversation of moving to a greater spend for defence.

Audio excerpt – Richard Marles:

“Reality is that there is no effective balance of power in this region absent the United States. But we cannot leave it to the United states alone.”

PAUL:

Now the problem with 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product is by several estimates that would increase our defence spending to, wait for it, $100 billion annually. At the moment Australia has committed to increase its spending to 2 per cent of Gross Domestic product which is, you know, back around 80 billion which is not to be sneezed at.

Audio excerpt – Richard Marles:

“Through the largest peacetime increase in defence spending since the end of the Second World War, Australia is investing in a generational transformation of the ADF to ensure we are not only in a position to deter force projection against us, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, to contribute to an effective regional balance where no state concludes that force is a viable way to achieve strategic goals.”

PAUL:

There was a feeling back in Canberra that Marles should have answered in the way in which Anthony Albanese did by pointing out to the American that we have already significantly upped our spending by $10 billion over the next four years. And in fact, going further out, thanks to AUKUS, we're talking about $300 billion, a lot of that which goes to the Americans. So there's no doubt that Albanese felt that there needed to be a bit of pushback.

Audio excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

“What you should do in defence is decide what you need, your capability, and then provide for it. That's what my government's doing. Investing in our capability and investing in our relationships.”

DANIEL:

Yeah. So the prime minister was much stronger in his response to Pete Hegseth's suggestion. Does that suggest that there's perhaps a rift between the defence minister and the prime minister on this particular issue?

PAUL:

Well, the prime minister's office claims there isn't. There's a hell of a lot of difference between being up for the conversation and actually agreeing to a preordained gargantuan amount of money. But I think also what the Albanese government is very keen to do, especially in the aftermath of the election, is not to be seen in any way, shape or form, to be kowtowing to Trump and the Trump administration. Because there is no doubt that in the election campaign, an overwhelming majority of Australians didn't like the Trump disruption and perceived that Peter Dutton was in fact too close to Trump and that many of his policies were shaped on Trump. So Albanese is very determined not to create any sort of impression that post-election he's now, as it were, going to toady to the Americans. In fact, in a very strong statement the next day, the prime minister pointed out, look, America doesn't determine our defence policy or spending or strategy, we do that.

Audio excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

“We determine our defence policy here. We're a sovereign nation that need to have pride in our sovereignty and in our capacity to make decisions in our national interests.”

DANIEL:

Paul, Australia and the US, for better or worse, have been joined at the hip for a long time now. Do you get a sense that that might be changing or is it mostly about perceptions, about being too close to Donald Trump in particular?

PAUL:

Yeah, look, there's no doubt things are changing, and I think before going to the particulars of what you've just asked me, Hugh White, the strategic expert and emeritus professor from the Australian National University in his latest quarterly essay, he talks about our post-American future, and it's an amazing analysis. That does point out that what we're seeing now is the strengthening of China as a world power economically and even strategically, and the weakening of the United States.

But the weakening of the United States, which is purposeful in terms of Trump no longer seeing the United States as the guarantor of democratic freedoms around the world, they're calling it the new American isolationism. So, this is the new reality we have to come to terms with. And it is diametrically opposed to the worldview between Australia and America since World War II, which led to the establishment of the ANZUS Treaty, a treaty between America, Australia and New Zealand that presumes that if we're attacked by anybody, America will come to our aid as the protector of our freedoms. But that is no longer the reality, and it's not only a reality that's changed thanks to Donald Trump, but it's one that's been changing over the last 30 years.

In my view, the Australian public has never quite been completely as enthusiastic for being all the way with the USA, or as one of our former Prime Ministers, Harold Holt, famously said on the lawns of the White House, all the with LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and this was at the height of the Vietnam War. Even though Harold Holt did win a landslide election in 1966, support for the Vietnam War was already waning. And within two elections, the Liberals lost, basically because of our commitment to Vietnam.

Audio excerpt – [Protesters chanting]

Audio excerpt – Reporter:

“Australia and the world have witnessed some of the biggest anti-war protests ever seen.”

PAUL:

And you might also remember that when John Howard wanted to send everybody off to war, joining George W Bush in the invasion of Iraq, there were massive protests in Sydney and Melbourne and public opinion was against that commitment. Certainly now what we're seeing, I think, is that the politicians, certainly with Anthony Albanese and Labor, are more in tune with overwhelming public opinion, so trying to make just how close we are to America the touchstone of legitimacy for the government no longer holds any water.

DANIEL:

After the break - what will happen when Trump and Albanese meet face to face

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DANIEL:

Paul, in a couple of weeks, Albanese will fly to Canada for the G7 summit, making it his first opportunity to meet with Donald Trump face to face. How do you think that meeting is likely to go?

PAUL:

First of all, we're the guests of the Canadian Prime Minister. We're not members of the G7, so we're there as official guests and observers. And Albanese is already telegraphing that he will politely but firmly tell the American President that his doubling of tariffs on our steel and uranium exports is not the act of a friend. And in fact, it is self-harm for the United States because all it does is up the cost of everything for the Americans themselves.

Nobody thinks that even if Albanese does this in the politest of ways that Donald Trump will thank him for it. And the talk in Canberra now is that Albanese won't be going down to Washington to have a tête-à-tête in the Oval Office, probably just as well because if he gets the tone wrong, well, he might get the same treatment that Zelensky got when he was in the oval office with Trump.

DANIEL:

The UK was able to secure an exemption from Trump's 50% tariffs on steel and aluminium. How likely is it that Australia could do the same?

PAUL:

Well, that's a very good question and maybe it'll depend, as we've been saying, on how Albanese navigates his way around the good ship Trump. One of things that's gotten in the way of us being able to, you know, negotiate exemptions is that our federal election got in the way. So that distracted our government from being able to do as much handiwork and go to Washington and all of that as Keir Starmer and the Brits were able to with Trump. So in a sense, there's a bit of catch up to be played here. But Trump Mark 2 has learned a lot from Trump Mark 1. And when we got exemptions, when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull won exemptions on tariffs back then. We were one of 30 other countries that got them. This time Trump's advisers and Trump himself are of a view nobody gets exemptions because it sort of defeats the purpose of what we're on about.

DANIEL:

Do you get the sense that Albanese and his government might be looking to forge stronger ties elsewhere beyond the US as a result of all this uncertainty?

PAUL:

Yeah, there's absolutely no doubt about that. As we speak, our trade minister, Don Farrell, is in Europe trying to resurrect the Europe-Australia free trade deal. Also, it's to be noted that at the Shangri-La dialogue this year, the keynote speaker was none other than the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

Audio excerpt – Emmanuel Macron:

“The time for non-alignment has undoubtedly passed, but the time for coalitions of action has come and requires that countries capable of acting together give themselves every means to do so. We must show consistency where others practise a double game.”

PAUL:

Albanese makes a big deal of letting people know that he and Macron are on same page on many things. And I think it's worth noting that Macron's speech pointed out that the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China, well, Macron's view is that this is the greatest threat to global security. And he said Trump's idea of, you know, you're either with us or against us, well it's dangerous.

Audio excerpt – Emmanuel Macron:

“I will just conclude now with a plea, a call for action for Europe and Asia to work together on a coalition of independence, a coalition of countries that won't be unrolled but won't be bullied, a coalition of countries that object to the double standard, a coalition of countries which will pool their strengths, to ride the race of technology, uphold norms, and protect their sovereignty.”

DANIEL:

Paul, always great to speak with you.

PAUL:

Thank you very much, Daniel. Bye.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news today…

Senior Liberal leaders have rejected comments from Alan Stockdale, the former Victorian treasurer appointed to manage its NSW division who claimed women in the party are “sufficiently assertive” and suggested quotas may now be needed to protect men.

Senior figures, including Federal Leader Sussan Ley and New South Wales Liberal Leader Mark Speakman, have condemned the remarks as out of step and damaging to efforts to rebuild support among women.

And

Donald Trump has announced a new travel ban affecting citizens from twelve countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle-East. The ban revives elements of this first-term immigration policy which was widely criticised as a ‘Muslim ban’.

The latest Trump travel ban came on the back of an antisemitic firebombing attack in Boulder, Colorado, in which an Egyptian man—who was in the US unlawfully—allegedly injured 15 people.

While Egypt wasn’t included in the list of banned countries, Trump cited the attack as justification for the sweeping restrictions.

7am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper.

It’s made by Atticus Bastow, Cheyne Anderson, Chris Dengate, Erik Jensen, Ruby Jones, Sarah McVeigh, Travis Evans, Zoltan Fecso and me -- Daniel James.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

That’s all from 7am for this week, we’ll be back on Monday.

Have a great weekend.

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