Foreign affairs minister says it will be up to Australia ‘to persuade a Trump administration to focus on the Asia Pacific’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, has raised concerns about the unclear direction of US foreign policy if Donald Trump becomes president.

She said the federal government had considered what a Clinton administration would mean for Australia and it knew what to expect.

But if Donald Trump won the US presidency she indicated the government would have to work hard to ensure Australia’s interests were still looked after.

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With less than two weeks to go before the US federal election, Bishop said Trump was a “much lesser-known quantity” than Hillary Clinton.

“I believe there will be continuity in foreign policy from the Obama administration, should it be a Clinton administration. She [Clinton] sees the US as having a global leadership role,” Bishop told the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.



“Candidate Donald Trump does not. He sees the US as having got a raw deal from globalisation and he would focus more on domestic matters.

“We have seen Hillary Clinton, particularly as secretary of state, have a view that the US should take a leadership role in the Middle East, in hot spots around the world. She was the principal architect of the rebalance to the Asia Pacific in 2011.

“The US became a member of the East Asia Summit with Australia, China and others. US engagement in our region is important for us. I believe that will continue under Hillary Clinton.

“It will be up to our region, including Australia, to persuade a Trump administration to focus on the Asia Pacific,” she said.

Bishop said she had met Clinton many times, and Clinton appeared to be pragmatic. She said Clinton understood Australia’s place in the world and had a deep understanding of the US-Australia alliance.

“Donald Trump is a much lesser known quantity, as far as Australia is concerned,” she said.

“He doesn’t have a record in government; in public office. We are looking closely at the policy pronouncements he has made.”

In February Trump said he wanted to shrink the American presence in Asia and charge allies billions of dollars for protection, complaining “rich” countries like Japan and South Korea had been freeloading on the US and the US was getting little in return.

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“We’re constantly, you know, sending our ships, sending our planes, doing our war games, doing other,” he said. “We’re reimbursed a fraction of what this is all costing.”

Bishop said Australia would also be monitoring carefully comments from the Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte.

She said Duterte recently “raised eyebrows” when he told Chinese officials that he wanted to separate from the US, but had clarified his comments to say he was only talking about pursuing an independent foreign policy from the United States, which she said was not a remarkable statement.

“There will be concerns if he does seek to distance the Philippines from the United States because the United States has been the principal security guarantor for our region and many nations, including the Philippines, and Australia has benefited enormously from the US presence,” Bishop said.

“He has gone on to say that in Japan he would like to see US troops leave but that he is not going to break any agreements at this point. We will monitor his statements carefully.”

Last month Bishop met with Trump’s campaign team in the US and said she had been assured Australia was a “close and strong ally of the United States”.

After the meeting, she said from Australia’s point of view the alliance would hold up under a Trump presidency.

“I am confident that whomever the American people in their wisdom choose to be president, there will be an ongoing strong connection with Australia,” she said.