On Tuesday 4 March 2025, AIIA New South Wales welcomed James Curran, Professor of Modern History at the University of Sydney, to explore the shifting dynamics of US politics under President Trump and their implications for Australia’s capacity to navigate these new strategic complexities.  

 Curran’s starting point was that Australia’s overarching foreign policy posture, largely aligned with the United States, has been underpinned by “the imperative of loyalty and the prospect of betrayal”. But now US foreign policy demands obeisance and can largely be characterised as “transactional”. With Trump’s co-option of America’s soft power to further his strong-man politics and capture mass attention, Trump and his cabinet are giving voice to a foreign policy of expansionism and great power politics.  

 This (Curran continued) is where the “imperative of loyalty” comes into play. Australia’s prevailing response to Trump’s new foreign policy has been to amplify its role as a compliant auxiliary, in order to ensure the US remains Australia’s greatest protector. Curran considered however that it would be illusory to believe that the tensions and consequences of a new American fickleness would dissipate after the four years of the Trump presidency.  

 Against the backdrop of Trump’s re-orientation of NATO, until now the “gold standard of security alliances”, the “prospect of betrayal” surfaces as Australia’s assumptions of US security guarantees are being called into question. Curran sees two elements that inform the precarious nature of the US-Australian alliance:  

• First, the ANZUS treaty only prescribes a “commitment to consult” as opposed to any material guarantees.
• Second, concerns arise regarding Australia’s possible exclusion from US activities in the Indo-Pacific, with Curran recalling Nixon’s 1972 surprise visit to China: this had challenged Australia’s non-recognition  of the PRC – a policy which had been aligned with the long-standing US stance. 

In this light, the US may again prove insensitive to Australia’s strategic interests.

Further invoking the “prospect of betrayal”, Curran explored the transactional nature of the US-Australian alliance. He noted that the US has greatly benefited from Australia’s intelligence bases (Pine Gap) and increasingly integrated armed forces (marine bases in Darwin, B-52 airfields in northern Australia, and the upcoming Perth submarine base). We have provided loyal auxiliary troops, contributed to the Quad, made a substantial investment in the US submarine industrial base, and bolstered US primacy in both the South Pacific and Southeast Asia.  

At the same time, Curran acknowledged the dividends that Australia has reaped from investment in the US alliance. Australia has a cultural affinity with American cultural and intellectual life. The US has been the source of foreign investment that has been fundamental in Australia’s economic development. ANZUS provides Australia with weapons, technology, and “psychological defence”.  

In response to audience questions and comments, Curran doubted that the US alliance would cease to serve Australian interests. For Australia to rupture the alliance would be an unsettling “reckoning for [Australian] complacency” with the world at large perceiving Australia as vulnerable. If Australia had to develop a more independent foreign policy without the US as our ally, it would have to establish a forward defence akin to Israel’s, characterised by “paranoia” and in conflict with our long-established relaxed style of governance.  

Asked about the expectations our Indo-Pacific partners have for Australia, Curran characterised Australia’s foreign policy as “forked tongued”. On one hand, Australian policy-makers broadcast ASEAN centrality and the Pacific step-up while on the other, Australia actively aligns itself with the Quad and AUKUS. It is overwhelmingly evident that so long as the US continues to be the guarantor of Australian security, our Southeast Asian partners know our focus and fealty lies with the US.  

On the question of Australia’s commitment to the rules-based order and institutions that uphold neo-liberal values, Curran emphasised that it would not serve Australia’s interest, as an island trading nation, to fall into a protectionist mindset. Australia must therefore buttress the global trading system because, without it, Australia’s economic prosperity would be at stake.  

In concluding comments, Curran said that, while Australia wants to maintain a strategic equilibrium in which “no country dominates and no country is dominated”, the great strength of the US (including Trump’s administration) is that this equilibrium is predicated on the US providing its core. Therefore, when engaging in any policy differences, Australia must master the right language in communicating such disagreements without jeopardising the relationship. Australia’s lodestar should be to align our cultural affinities with our strategic interests by impressing on Washington that Australia’s defence is integral to theirs.  

Report by Michelle Chandra, AIIA NSW intern

Prof James Curran (right) with AIIA NSW intern Michelle Chandra (centre) and president Ian Lincoln