Dr Morgan Rees, QUT School of Justice
At 12pm (US EST) on 20 January 2025, Donald Trump will become President of the United States for the second time. In doing so, he will be only the second president in US history (since Grover Cleveland in 1893) to be sworn into a second, non-consecutive term.
Now in 2025, Trump has been at the centre of US political debate for over a decade. His victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race came as a shock to most political pundits. Then, as expected, his term was as tumultuous and eventful as it was controversial. Pushing his offbeat “America First” worldview, he challenged establishment norms and tested the limits of US institutions.
It’s no secret that Trump held a general disdain for foreign alliances and commitments during his first term. No one was spared. He threatened to withdraw the US from NATO (the most powerful military alliance in the world) on the false pretence that allies were not “paying their fair share”. Similarly, he suggested that US troops should be pulled from South Korea and Japan, and that South Korea should pay “rent” to have US forces as they served as a deterrent to attack from the North Korean neighbours – an idea he continued to push through the 2024 presidential campaign.
For the most part, Australia managed to avoid Trump’s first term wrath with the exception of one, now infamous, fiery phone call in which Trump berated Australia’s then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee agreement reached under the Obama administration.
So, what’s in store?
What is this likely to mean for Australia during a second Trump term? Will it simply be a repeat of the first? An at times chaotic montage of angry online rants and off-the-cuff remarks that turn out to be more an exercise in venting that substantive policy aspirations.
I think no. Trump’s second term stands to be far more consequential for Australia in ways that may impact both our foreign policy and domestic policy for decades to come. This is not just because this time around, Trump will have fewer constraints and people trying to hold back his more eccentric impulses. The reality is that the circumstances of the Australia-US relationship have changed.
Shortly after Trump left office in 2021, Australian and British policymakers approached the Biden administration with an ambitious plan to deepen the alliance between the three countries. That plan – colloquially known as AUKUS – was officially put into place on 15 September 2021.
AUKUS is arguably Australia most significant defence pact of the last 70 years. It is a multipronged defence agreement that encompasses cooperation across cyber and artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, undersea capabilities, hypersonic and counter hypersonic, electronic warfare, information, and innovation sharing. But most significantly, it includes the acquisition of nuclear powered-submarines as a means of replacing our aging conventionally powered fleet of Collins-class submarines.
The cost? A not-so-modest $368 billion price tag.
But why is this important?
AUKUS raises the potential risks of a more inwardly focussed US for Australia. It has become the blueprint of Australia’s defence and security architecture for what is meant to be the next few decades. It represents a deeper alliance on the US than had existed previously. It represents a greater reliance on US technology and their willingness to share it. It represents a greater reliance on US domestic politics – something that Australia has zero control over.
Since the end of World War II, the US alliance has been a constant in Australian foreign relations, regardless of who was in the White House. Our foreign policy has been built around the fact that we have the US to help promote the rules and interests of the international order within the region. But this proved not to be a guarantee in Trump’s first term, and it won’t be in his second.
The future of AUKUS
British and Australian policymakers specifically waited for Biden to become president before proposing AUKUS, recognising that Trump’s narrowly conceived interpretation of US interests had seen an inward turn in US foreign policy away from the rest of the world. Thus, he was unlikely to be open to another alliance.
But Trump is not predictable on matters of foreign policy. When it comes to AUKUS, he could move to renegotiate the terms. He may seek to alter it so much that it continues to exist in name only. He might scrape it altogether. Or he may honour it, and it will go ahead as planned.
The problem is that we don’t know. Uncertainty over the future of our own security arrangements, and uncertainty over the future of US interests leaves Australia in a precarious position.
Will AUKUS and the transfer of nuclear technology pass Trump’s “America First” assessment? Our fate is not entirely in our own hands.
One thing is certain – Australian foreign policy is about to experience a period of volatility. The only question, will we emerge more secure, or will AUKUS prove to be a risk that doesn’t pay off?
