It seems likely that our prime minister will meet Donald Trump at the United Nations General Assembly later this month.

AUKUS submarines will cost five times the entire annual defence budget. We can’t fund both AUKUS and a self reliant defence capability. We must choose self reliance.

Anthony Albanese has been wise not to heed the Austral-Americans urging him get to Washington as soon as possible to meet Trump. He decided not to join the Conga line of heads of state and government prostrating themselves before Trump, only to be humiliated.

Prime ministers have the authority to do things which foreign ministers or defence ministers cannot. Anthony Albanese should seize the opportunity to demonstrate that he is firm and clear in outlining Australia’s position not just on tariffs but, much more importantly, on our national security and sovereignty. This visit will not be risk-free, but Albanese could spell out very clearly matters that are vital for Australia’s future, as John Curtin did many decades ago.

It would be natural for Albanese to say that while he supports many Trump positions, e.g. on Iran, he can’t support the line that some people high in the Trump Administration keep putting forward about China and Taiwan, that a US-China war is likely and must be prepared for and we must be part of it.

He could say that he recently had held “settling” talks with President Xi, and that Australia could not expect him to stick to their provisions if it is obviously preparing to join a US war effort against China.

A new world order is emerging with declining US influence

Albanese’s visit to the US provides an opportunity to carefully disengage from the US. Trump is not an aberration. The US malady is deep-seated.

The post-World War II world led by the US is changing. Many factors are in play. The rise of China stands out. Certainly, China has problems, but it is looking more and more the steadier country and, increasingly, an alternative model for development.

The West-centric world is shrinking but the elites of this world — politicians, media and officials — don’t want to see or hear about the change.

There are many related changes reducing US power and influence:

• The relationship between China and Russia is strengthening.
• Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visited China last November, a month after his election.
• Indian Prime Minister Modi has visited China for the first time in seven years. Trump damaged relations between US and India cultivated over decades. His taunting, together with his infamous Trade Counsellor Peter Navarro, left a bitter taste.
• The growing relationship between China/Russia/North Korea is obvious as we saw at the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Japan. Daniel Andrews was a useful media diversion from the emerging new world order.
• The founding countries of BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — are adding Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia and United Arab Emirates to their grouping.
• With the genocide in Gaza, most of the world is siding with Palestine and not with the US or Israel. The Global South is asserting itself to shake off the economic and political legacies of colonialism.

In its 2025 Global Attitudes Survey, Pew Research found that 62% of respondents across 24 major countries had no confidence in Trump to handle US-China relations.

The Democracy Perception Index, based in Denmark, revealed that China is more favourably viewed than the US. The US net favourable rating has dropped from 22% in 2024 to -5% in 2025.

In the chaotic Trump world, with his whims and petulance, it is increasingly looking like “every man for himself”. American statecraft is in tatters.

Despite profound concerns about the US and the feeble Europeans, most want to see a continuing US role, but not as the sole hegemon. If the US does not accept a multipolar world, its own decline will accelerate.

Changing Australian attitudes

These changes in world attitudes towards the US are reflected in changing Australian attitudes toward the US and China, despite the daily China panic across all our media.

A Resolve Political Model poll in November last year found that 57% of Australian voters thought Australia should sit out a conflict between the competing superpowers (US and China) with only 16% in favour of being involved.

At a political level, Australian voters are also showing their concern about China bashing. As Bob Carr put it, “the anti-China campaign by the Liberal Party resulted in Chinese background voters being so alienated by the war talk of Peter Dutton as defence minister and the anti-China diplomacy of Scott Morrison that they handed Labor its lower house majority in the 2022 elections”.

An ABC poll recently revealed that 47% of Australians believe that we should be “much less close or somewhat less close” to the US. Only 18% said we should be “somewhat closer or much closer to the United States”.

A Pew Research study in June this year found that 77% of Australians had little or no confidence in Trump to do the right thing regarding world affairs and our rating of the US has declined from 40% last year to 29% this year.

A Lowy Poll in June this year revealed that “with Donald Trump in the White House only 36% of Australians trust America to act responsibly”. That was a 20% drop since last year.

We should not be supporting the US in a war with China

Both global and Australian attitudes are becoming more cautious and sceptical about US behaviour and how it treats its friends and allies. It is being categorised as a “dangerous ally” as Malcolm Fraser warned us.

Those changing attitudes provide very good reasons for Australia to sit it out over Taiwan.

Alexander Downer, in his better days in August 2004, said, in Beijing, that “ANZUS did not necessarily commit Australia to siding with the US in a war over Taiwan”. Paul Keating has made it clear that in his view “defending Taiwan is not in Australia’s interests.”

Our intelligence agencies are in thrall to the CIA which provides, by far, the major input to the Five Eyes. This US colonisation of our intelligence services effectively sidelines the Department of Foreign affairs and Trade. Diplomacy is discounted.

The US rationale for building defence facilities in Australia has one objective: containment and confrontation with China. AUKUS and the US bases serve America’s interests, not ours.

If it is made clear to the US that we don’t share its view on the China threat, Washington will understand very quickly that the military colony they are building in Australia is of little value to them. Ironically, the US could help us recover our sovereignty.

If we can rid ourselves of the AUKUS fantasy with its enormous cost, we can then also focus on building self-reliance in our own defence. We should not be sabotaging our own defence effort for the benefit of the US.

How we assert our sovereignty was made clear by Fraser in the Australian Parliament on 11 March 1981. He said, “the Australian Government has, as a firm policy, that aircraft carrying nuclear weapons will not be allowed to fly over or stage through Australia without its knowledge and agreement. Nothing less than this would be consistent with the maintenance of our national sovereignty”.

We must assert our sovereignty now. If we wait until war breaks out over Taiwan, it would be too late. We need to make our position clear now.

We must carefully and diplomatically disengage from the US, a country that is almost always at war. This is a real test for Albanese as it was for Curtin.

His prime ministership will be judged by how skilfully he can do this.