For decades, Australians have tried to play both roles at the same time, but that’s an increasingly difficult balancing act. As conflicts sharpen between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, Australians are beginning to worry that they will be forced to choose one side or the other—and they’re not sure which way to jump.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison asked for a meeting with Trump at this month’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Singapore, but the president decided to skip the event. Meanwhile, Xi invited Morrison to Beijing, part of a charm offensive that includes offering Australia a stake in economic projects around the Pacific.

“We are having a fundamental debate here about foreign and defense policy because we are now starting to see that America will not play the role in Asia that we would like it to play,” Hugh White, the dean of Australian strategic thinkers, told me. Without a reliable U.S. presence, he warned, Australia will have no choice but to accommodate the rise of China. “We have to accept the challenge of negotiating our place in the new Asia without U.S. support,” White said.

Not an ideal moment to leave the U.S. embassy in Canberra without an ambassador. Australia isn’t the only U.S. ally that feels underappreciated. Trump has made a specialty of abusing friends while he butters up adversaries. He’s accused Germany and other NATO members of cheating on their dues, denounced the European Union as a plot against the United States, and called Canada’s prime minister “dishonest.”

He’s left dozens of U.S. embassies understaffed, too. Two years after his election, the president still hasn’t nominated ambassadors to two of the most important U.S. allies in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Turkey—as became apparent after the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

There’s no U.S. ambassador in Mexico, our troubled neighbor to the south. No ambassador in nuclear-armed Pakistan, arguably the most dangerous country on Earth. No ambassador in Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world. No ambassador in Jordan, a vulnerable ally sandwiched between Syria and Israel. No ambassador in South Africa or Singapore.

In 18 countries including those, the White House hasn’t even designated anyone for the job. In 41 more, Trump has nominated a candidate who is stuck waiting for Senate confirmation. And those numbers don’t count special envoys or representatives at international organizations who carry the rank of ambassador.

The overall result: Almost half of the top-level jobs in the State Department are still empty almost two years into the administration.

There’s a long list of reasons why all those posts are still unfilled. The Trump administration had a notably chaotic start. The president-elect arrived in Washington without a long list of friends he wanted to reward with embassies.