Trump isn’t just a Canadian campaign issue. Australia grapples with its U.S. relationship in election

U.S. President Donald Trump is looming large in the final weeks of Australia’s general election campaign, spelling trouble for conservative Opposition leader Peter Dutton just as a new poll shows Australians’ faith in the United States at an all-time low.

Trump’s blustery style and often disruptive policies, including “reciprocal” tariffs against long-time allies and attacks on U.S. government agencies, have begun to alarm Australian voters, analysts and academics say.

The dynamics are similar but not quite the same as in Canada, where the Liberal Party’s fortunes, according to a raft of polls, have been revived dramatically by a change in leadership from Justin Trudeau to Mark Carney ahead of the April 28 vote.

The Labor Party of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has surged in various polls relative to Dutton’s conservative coalition, with only three-and-a-half weeks until the May 3 election.

“Trump has emerged as the third candidate in this election campaign,” said Mark Kenny, a professor specializing in politics at the Australian National University in Canberra.

“He’s made it quite difficult for Peter Dutton to get his message across, and made it difficult for Dutton to be seen as an entirely independent figure in this election campaign.”

A survey released on Wednesday by the Lowy Institute, a research foundation, found only 36 per cent of Australians expressed any level of trust in the U.S. to act responsibly, down 20 points since the last survey in June 2024 and the lowest since the annual poll was launched two decades ago. 

The polling was conducted in March, before Trump announced his swathe of tariffs, including a blanket 10 per cent on all Australian imports.

“Given President Donald Trump’s norm-shattering approach to his second term, it’s no surprise that Australians are less trusting of the United States,” said Ryan Neelam, the Lowy Institute’s Director of Public Opinion and Foreign Policy. 

Incumbent tries to tie Dutton to Trump, Musk

Dutton, from the Liberal Party has campaigned on several policies seen widely as emulating Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) group, set up by Elon Musk. In January, Dutton appointed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as a shadow minister for government efficiency, a position inspired by Musk’s role, analysts said.

“With Australians sick of the wasteful spending that is out of control … Jacinta will be looking closely at how we can achieve a more efficient use of taxpayers’ money,” Dutton said at the time.

The Labor Party has capitalized on the shift in public sentiment, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers repeatedly referring to the opposition leader as “DOGE-y Dutton.”

Albanese said on Tuesday that Dutton would enact “DOGE-style cuts” to the public sector if he were elected.

“[Australians] are not enjoying the turmoil and the capriciousness of the White House, and Dutton’s early enthusiasm along with other conservatives to celebrate Trump’s win has been pretty much lead in his saddlebags all the way through this campaign,” Australian National University’s Kenny said.

“That weight has just got heavier and heavier as Trump has become less and less popular.”

Considerable military, intelligence ties

The combative stance of the new U.S. administration is also a campaign topic in relation to the military co-operation between the two countries.

Australia has pledged to purchase three nuclear-powered Virginia submarines from the U.S. in the 2030s under the AUKUS trilateral security partnership which also includes the United Kingdom, in an arrangement that contains various plans and contingencies that span decades. The three countries are also, along with Canada and New Zealand, part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance.

The Australian Submarine Agency said acquiring nuclear submarines was a key part of Australia’s defence strategy of denial, and “will be equipped for intelligence, surveillance, undersea warfare and strike missions.”

While AUKUS has strong support from the major Australian parties, disappointment has been expressed that the defence ties didn’t win Australia exemptions from Trump’s tariffs has put the program under unprecedented public scrutiny.

Independent lawmakers are skeptical of Trump and have called for a review of the submarine deal, though the impact of the independents could be limited unless a hung Parliament results from the May 3 vote.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison, who clinched the AUKUS treaty in 2021, said in an interview with Reuters that the threat posed by China and the deterrent of Australia operating nuclear-powered submarines in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean drove the agreement.

“China is the threat — of course they are — and that is what needs to be deterred,” Morrison said.

“The idea of more U.S. and more British boats being in and around Australia, and on station in Australia, in the theatre, we always knew that would bring the earlier deterrent,” he added.

Australia’s plan to purchase Virginia submarines was added to AUKUS by Labor in 2023.

Albanese, elected in 2022, has been less willing to publicly criticize China, even as Australia’s air force and navy continue freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea. This has become a point of political attack in the election campaign for Dutton, who was defence minister in Morrison’s government.