Are We Breaking Up? How Prime Minister Albanese’s Reelection Will Shape Australia-USA Relations
- Jett James Pruitt
- May 6
- 5 min read
In an Election Viewed as a Referendum on Trumpism, Australia May Be on a Dangerous Course to Ending Military Ties with the United States
Article Written by Jett James Pruitt
On May 3, incumbent Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, spoke to supporters after leading the center-left Australian Labor Party to a landslide victory in the country’s federal elections:
“Today, the Australian people have voted for Australian values: for fairness, aspiration, and opportunity for all; for the strength to show courage in adversity and kindness to those in need…In this time of global uncertainty, Australians have chosen optimism and determination. Australians have decided to face global challenges the Australian way: looking after each other, while building forward the future.”
Albanese — who has served as Prime Minister since May 2022 — successfully campaigned on the premise that his government would be more effective in managing relations with the United States than the center-right Liberal-National Coalition (a.k.a. 'The Coalition') led by Petter Dutton.
A YouGov Poll conducted two weeks before the election showed that 55 percent of Australian voters thought Albanese would best handle Australia’s relationship with the U.S., compared to 45 percent who said the same for Dutton.
In an election political analysts view as a referendum on Trumpism, Dutton’s image as “Australia’s Trump” appears to have weakened support for the conservative alliance. Namely, Dutton’s pledges to enact stricter immigration policies, contain China’s growing economic influence, and eliminate up to 40,000 public-sector jobs led many Australian voters to draw parallels between the two national leaders.
Political Science professor Frank Mols at the University of Queensland predicted earlier in the campaign season: “The Coalition will probably regret issuing messages that came across as supporting Trump and opposing U.S. Democrats.” This, coupled with the Liberal-National campaign being viewed as somewhat inconsistent and disjointed, fueled the Labor Party’s unexpected landslide victory, especially within urban areas.
As of this writing, the Labor Party is expected to win 85 seats in the Australian House of Representatives, which is nine more than the 76 seat-threshold needed for a majority. Meanwhile, The Coalition is projected to hold onto 39 seats, thus suffering a net loss of 19 seats from the previous government.
Scaling back from the immediate aftermath of the Australian national elections, international pundits predict that Albanese’s reelection as Australia’s prime minister will shift the country towards aligning with Asia on security matters and weaning off its close military partnership with the United States.
For historical context, the two nations have enjoyed a special security alliance, with American and Australian forces fighting alongside in every major conflict since World War I.
In 1951, Canberra and Washington ratified the ANZUS Treaty, mandating that both nations consult each other on security matters in the Indo-Pacific and coordinate a bilateral response to any armed attack in the region. As recently as 2021, then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison negotiated AUKUS for the country to acquire nuclear-powered submarines and facilitate greater sharing of military technology with the United States.
Under this framework, relations between the two countries have been warm, especially throughout the Second World War and the Cold War. In the words of journalist Ben Doherty at The Guardian, “From the Australian side, the US relationship remains one cast consistently as ‘special,’ almost familial. It is abiding and reciprocal, cloaked in the semi-sacred rhetoric of ANZUS, of ‘mateship,’ of ‘shared values’”.
However, this alliance has recently come under immense scrutiny from the Australian electorate against the backdrop of the Russo-Ukrainian War, China’s territorial claims against Taiwan, and Trump's imposition of a 10 percent tariff on all Australian goods.
Yet, perhaps the strongest driving force behind Australian voters’ skepticism of military ties with the United States involves a broad rejection of President Trump and his policies.
A YouGov polled conducted in April 2025 found that 71 percent of Australian voters are either concerned or very concerned that President Trump’s policies will make Australia worse off. Only 7 percent said they were not concerned at all.
The same poll further discovered that 66 percent of respondents no longer believe the United States is a reliable security partner. This is in stark contrast to June 2024, when only 39 percent of Australians held this view.
A separate poll conducted by the Australia Institute discovered that 31 percent of Australians believe Donald Trump is the greatest threat to world peace, compared with 27 percent each for Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Finally, nearly half of Australians believe that the Trump administration would not defend Australia’s security interests if it were attacked by a foreign power.
It is important to note that while public opinion in Australia is certainly drifting away from the United States, some international pundits argue it is a temporary development attached to a single political actor, rather than a long-term geopolitical pivot.
Among other things, they contend the historical partnership with the U.S. is so deeply-entrenched that it will be difficult for the Albanese government to immediately wean off dependency on American defense capabilities. At this time, Australia is one of the U.S.’s largest defense customers, with Canberra spending more than $27 billion a year on American weapons and military equipment. On a proportional basis, 80 percent of arms imports into Australia come from the U.S, followed by Spain at 15 percent.
Moreover, there are virtually no indications the country will align with China (widely considered America’s main competitor in the Pacific) any time soon, as a Lowy Institute Poll conducted in 2024 found that 53 percent of Australian voters believe China is more of a security threat than an economic partner.
Regardless, there is a universal consensus among political analysts that Albanese has an implicit mandate among Australian voters to further diversify Australia’s alliance network to other countries in the region, including Japan, New Zealand, and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Particularly with calls from Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to create an ‘Asian NATO,’ it is possible Canberra will source more of its arms imports from a larger pool of nations.
For context, Australia is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary form of government, in which King Charles III serves as Head of State. The country’s constitution stipulates a Governor-general (who is currently Sam Mostyn) serves as the federal representative of the British Monarch.
Australia is unique within international politics for adopting elements of both the British and American political systems, as well as mandating all Australian adults to vote (otherwise, they have to pay a 20 AUD fine). The House of Representatives comprises 151 members, whereas the Senate is composed of 76 members from Australia’s six states and two internal territories. The Prime Minister is selected within the House of Representatives, and effectively serves as the country’s Head of Government.
Besides the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition, other prominent political parties in Australia include the environmentalist Australian Greens and the economically-socialist, yet socially-conservative Katter’s Australian Party. Despite the presence of other parties, however, Australia is considered a de facto two-party system.
Only time will tell the extent to which Albanese decouples Australia’s military ties with the U.S., and whether the Australian public will continue to place trust in his government amid an increasingly uncertain geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region.
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Jett James Pruitt is a Native American, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of the bestselling book THROUGH THE EYES OF A YOUNG AMERICAN. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of TheGenZPost.com and a political strategist specializing in Generation Z voter trends. He is currently a B.A. International Politics student at The University of London Institute in Paris. His next book, THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE: What America's Political Parties Must Do To Win Over Generation Z, will be released in major bookstores worldwide in late 2025.
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