From Swartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM. For decades, Australian governments have followed a bipartisan rule stick close to the United States, but this week Prime Minister Anthony Alberzi appeared to break from that tradition, rejecting pressure from Washington, standing firm on defense spending in light of a demand to newly double it, and was vocal in
his criticisms of Trump's tariffs from steel and aluminum. It's a shift that signals a different approach to Australia's national security, one that distances itself from America is unpredictable foreign policy and increasingly fragile alliances. Today. Columnists for the Saturday Paper poor Born Joorno on why Alberanze is stepping back from the US are what it means for Australia's place in the world. It's Friday six.
Well, it is great to be here.
We've definitely Prime Minister at Tinsley Man.
We're in tucks regularly.
Just a longstanding, incredibly important partnership with our friends in Australia.
Paul over the work in Australia's Defense Minister Richard Miles met with his US counterpart, Pete Hegsith, What do we know about that meeting?
Well, we know it was in the context of the Shangrila Dialogue, which is a very high powered meeting of government officials and military types held annually in Singapore.
Under President Trump's leadership, the United States is committed to achieving peace through strength.
Hegsith gave a speech on the Saturday, but on the Friday night he did meet with Richard Miles and put it on Miles that Australia should increase its defense spending as soon as possible to three point five percent of our gross domestic product.
I urge all of our allies and partners to seize this moment with us. Our defense spending must reflect the dangers and threats that we face today, because the terrence doesn't come on the cheap, just to ask the American taxpayer.
Miles and 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 in the world, should increase the defense spending. He didn't quibble in the broad with the view of higgsth that China is becoming more and more of a military threat and people better get ready for it.
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.
Miles, 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 defense.
Reality is that there is no effective balance of power in this region absence the United States. But we cannot leave it to the United States alone.
Now.
The problem with three point five percent of gross domestic product is by several estimates, that would increase our defense spending to wait for it, one hundred billion dollars annually. At the moment, Australia has committed to increase its spending to two percent of gross domestic product, which is, you know, back around eighty billion, which is not to be sneezed at.
Through the largest peace time increase in defense 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.
There was a feeling back in Canberra that Miles should have answered in the way in which Anthony Albanzi did by pointing out to the American that we have already significantly upped our spending by ten billion dollars over the next four years and in fact going further out thanks to UCAS. We're talking about three hundred billion, a lot of that which goes to the Americans. So there's no doubt that Albanizi felt that there needed to be a bit of pushback.
What you should do in defense has 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.
Yeah, so the Prime Minister was much stronger in his response to Peter Hexas suggestion. Does that suggest that there's perhaps a riff between the Defense Minister and the Prime Minister on this particular issue.
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 cow tewing 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 Dunton was in fact too close to Trump and that many of his
policies were shaped on Trump. So Albanezi is very determined not to create any sort of impression that post election is 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 defense policy or spending or strategy. We do that.
We determine our defense policy. Here where a sovereign nation that need to have pride in our sovereignty and in our capacity to make decisions in our national interest.
Paul Australia in the US, for bitter 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.
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, an emeritus professor from the Australan 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 is the garran tor 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 ANAS 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 thirty 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 way with LBJ Lynden Bands Johnson. And this was at
the height of the Vietnam War. Even though Harold Holt did win a landslide election in nineteen sixty six, support for the Vietnam War was already waning, and within two elections the Liberals lost basically because of our commitment to Vietnam.
Australia and the world have witnessed some of the biggest anti war protests ever seen.
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.
After the break, What will happen when Trump and Albanzi meet face to face? Paul? In a couple of weeks, Albanese will fly to Canada for the G seventh summer, making it his first opportunity to meet with Donald Trump face to face. How do you think that meeting is likely to go.
First of all, we're the guests of the Canadian Prime Minister. We're not members of the G seven, so we're there as official guests and observers. And Albanesi 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. Now, nobody thinks that even if Albanizi does this in the politest of ways, that Donald Trump will thank him for it. And the talk in Gamber now is that Albanezy won't be going down to Washington have Tate in the Oval Office. Probably just as well, because if he gets the tone wrong, well, he might get the same treatment that Zelene got when he was in the Oval Office with Trump.
The UK was able to secure an exemption from Trump's fifty percent tariffs and steel an aluminium. How likely is it that Australia could do the same.
Well, that's a very good question and it'll depend, as we've been saying, on how Albanezi navigates his way around the good ship Trump. One of the things that's gotten in the way of us being able to 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 you go to Washington and all of that as Kei, as Starmer and the Brits were able to do with Trump. So in a sense there's a
bit of catch up to be played here. But Trump Mark two has learned a lot from Trump Mark I. And when we got exemptions, when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnmilled won exemptions on Tariff's back, then we were one of thirty other countries that got them. This time, Trump's advisors and Trump himself are of a view nobody gets exemptions because it sort of defeats the purpose of what we're on about.
Do you get the sense that Albanesi and his government might be looking to forge stronger tie elsewhere beyond the US as a result of all this uncertainty.
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 Shangrila Dialogue this year the keynote speaker was none other than the French President Emanuel Macron.
The time for non alignment has undoubtedly pasts, but the time for coalitions of action as com and require that country is capable of acting together gives themselves every means to do so. We mass show consistency where all thos practice aable game.
Albanezi makes a big deal of letting people know that he and Macron are the 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 this, well, it's dangerous.
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 contries that won't be enrolled but won't be believed. A coalition of contries that objects to the double standard. A coalition of contries that will pull their strengths to write the rest of technology, appold norms and protect the sovereigns.
Paul, always great to speak with you.
Thank you very much. Daniel buy.
Also in the news today, senior Liberal leaders have rejected comments from Alan Stockdale, the former Victorian treasurer appointed the manager it's new South Wales division, who claimed women in the party are sufficiently assertive and suggested quote as may now be needed to protect men. Senior figures, including federal leader Susan Lee and New South Wales liberal leader Mark Speakman have condemned the remarks as add a 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 revised elements of his first term immigration policy, which was widely criticized as a Muslim ban. The latest travel ban came on the back of an anti Semitic fire bombing attack in Bolder, Colorado, in which an Egyptian man who was in the US unlawfully alleg injured fifteen people.
While Egypt wasn't included in the list of band countries, Trump cited the attack as a justification for the sweeping restrictions. Seven Am was a daily show from Schwartz Media on the Saturday Paper. It's made by Atticus Bastow, Shane Anderson, Chris Stengate, Eric Jensen, Ruby Jones, Sarah McPhee, Travis Evans, Zoltenfetcho and Met Daniel James. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Bordeo. That's all from seven Am for this week we'll be back on Monday.
Have a great weekend.