00:00Australia is rethinking its ties with Washington with a recent Lowy Institute poll showing 51%
00:05of Australians now see China as more important than the US. Confidence in President Trump has
00:10also plunged to record lows. Pew Research saying that Australians once among America's most positive
00:15partners are now showing steep declines in confidence and favourability. Together the
00:20surveys highlight the country's growing unease with US leadership. Well joining us now is Charles
00:25Leon's Jones who's a research fellow at the Lowy Institute. Charles really great to have you with us.
00:30This is a trend that we've seen in consecutive surveys now. Well confidence in President Trump
00:36has indeed cratered but support for Australia's alliance with the United States remains sturdy.
00:4160% of Australians may have no confidence at all in the President of the United States to do the
00:46right thing in world affairs but 73% of Australians still say that our alliance with the United States
00:52remains important to Australia's security. That shows that Australians are highly capable of
00:57separating their opinions of President Trump as the occupant in the Oval Office from their views on
01:03the alliance as an important arrangement which has safeguarded Australia's security for over 50 years.
01:08So you've got to expect that the lack of predictability in foreign policy uh the willingness
01:14of this President to kind of throw out the playbook is is creating some unease. It certainly is and
01:21Australians almost unanimously disapprove of many of the Trump administration's key foreign policy
01:28priorities. Significant majorities disapprove for instance of the use of tariffs in order to coerce
01:34countries to comply with the Trump administration's objectives and over nine in ten Australians disapprove
01:40of President Trump's threats to Denmark to relinquish sovereign control of Greenland. That shows that
01:46Australians have a strong distaste for Trumpism but they do support the alliance on the whole. What's
01:52interesting to me is um a growing affinity with Beijing. Well Australians are pragmatic on China.
02:01Australia's trading relationship with China is by far and away our largest with over 300 billion
02:07dollars in two-way trade between the two countries on an annual basis. Australians likewise overwhelmingly
02:14support the trading relationship with China but they're also clear-eyed about the security threats
02:19facing Australia. For instance six in ten Australians say that China is likely to pose a military threat
02:26to Australia in the next 20 years in the next 20 years but a similar proportion also say they see
02:33China
02:33more as an economic partner than as a security threat. What that shows is that Australians are highly
02:39capable of holding two conflicting truths in their heads at the same time. And part of that conflicting
02:44reality is the the risk posed by Beijing its ambitions in the South China Sea and there's always a lot
02:50of
02:50discussion about the future of Taiwan but this poll was taken at a time when the U.S. instigated the
02:56war with Iran right. Did that have an impact? Well we did poll on that specific question. We asked Australians
03:04whether they approved or disapproved of the Trump administration's strikes against Iranian nuclear targets
03:10and regime targets. They were divided on both of those questions but as the war dragged on eight in
03:16ten Australians said they disapproved of President Trump's handling of the military campaign in Iran.
03:22So Australians don't necessarily trust the President of the United States but they are pragmatic about the
03:29importance of the alliance to Australia's security. What does the survey reflect when it comes to broader
03:35confidence in other world leaders? Well confidence in world leaders has taken a bit of a hit across
03:41the board. For instance confidence in Australia's Prime Minister Antony Albanese has fallen seven points
03:47from last year's poll to 53 percent and there isn't Australians don't have much confidence in Xi Jinping to
03:54do the right thing in world affairs either. And I think what that reflects is a deteriorating strategic
04:02environment where Australians on the whole don't feel safe when they're thinking about world events.
04:09The China sort of tension but also the I won't call it an alliance but certainly the recognition of
04:17its importance is an interesting run right? Is it sort of the recognition that for better for worse that
04:22trade relationship is going to be there and remains dominant for Australia? It's a really interesting
04:27question and one of the key findings of this year's poll is that six in ten Australians say they feel
04:33pessimistic about Australia's economic performance over the next five years. Given the importance of
04:38China's two-way trade with Australia I think Australians are starting to see China more as an economic partner
04:46than as a security threat as as was the case only a few years ago. Do you think there's anything
04:52that could
04:53reverse these trends obviously we're heading into midterms potentially still a lot of upheaval in the US
05:00political system to come? There certainly is a lot of upheaval in the US political system to come but there
05:06is also a lot of
05:07upheaval that China can cause as well. Xi Jinping has instructed the People's Liberation Army to ready itself for a
05:13successful invasion of Taiwan by 2027. That for instance would be an event which would
05:19significantly erode confidence in China's President Xi Jinping to do the right thing in world affairs I
05:25suspect. You talked about falling approval for Australia's leaders or leader. What does that reflect
05:32in terms of foreign policy positioning? Well Australians are also less supportive of the Albanese government's
05:40foreign policy but I think that that needs to be understood in the context of Australians feeling less
05:46safe when they're thinking about world events. The strategic environment is a difficult one for
05:51Australia. There are a lot of tough choices and it's a tough time to be a world leader.
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