{"id":403131,"date":"2026-01-12T14:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T14:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/403131\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T14:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T14:51:07","slug":"australia-should-reconsider-alliance-with-fiercely-unpredictable-us-former-foreign-ministers-say-australian-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/403131\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia should reconsider alliance with \u2018fiercely unpredictable\u2019 US, former foreign ministers say | Australian foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Albanese government should urgently reconsider Australia\u2019s alliance with the United States, two former Labor foreign ministers have said, as they voiced alarm over Donald Trump\u2019s military intervention in Venezuela<\/a> and renewed push to claim Greenland.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Guardian Australia in the days after the US seizure of Venezuela\u2019s president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr<\/a> said Trump\u2019s America had become a \u201cfiercely unpredictable\u201d ally, raising a \u201ccolossal challenge\u201d for Australia.<\/p>\n

Another former Labor foreign minister, Gareth Evans, said he was concerned the US had \u201czero respect\u201d for international law or the interests of its allies. Evans said the Aukus pact should be reconsidered.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a wake-up call that can no longer be ignored by the Australian government. It\u2019s now more than time for the Aukus submarine project to be abandoned, and our defence capability to be built in our own interests, not those of a now totally unreliable United States,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n

Former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans. Photograph: Joel Carrett\/AAP<\/p>\n

After launching airstrikes and a raid in Venezuela that led to the seizure of Maduro<\/a> earlier this month, Donald Trump has threatened to take over Greenland<\/a> and has said the US would take action on Greenland<\/a> \u201cwhether they like it or not\u201d.<\/p>\n

Australia has not criticised the Trump administration\u2019s actions or rhetoric on Venezuela or Greenland. After the US operation to capture Maduro and moves to capture Venezuelan oil, Albanese said his government was \u201cmonitoring developments\u201d, calling for an adherence to international law and a \u201cpeaceful, democratic transition\u201d of political power.<\/p>\n

Carr, the foreign minister from 2012 to 2013, said it was wise for the government to \u201ckeep our head down and watch closely\u201d, adding it was unclear what Trump\u2019s \u201cburst of unilateralism\u201d<\/a> meant for the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur US ally is fiercely unpredictable and dedicated ruthlessly to American national interests, without any pretence of being committed to universal values or a global, rules-based order,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a colossal challenge for Australia and the national security establishment \u2026 the server is out of the room for what that means, not just for Aukus but for the alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an utterly different America than the one that generated our rhetoric about shared values, rules-based order and seeing the world through that lens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carr has used recent posts on social media to suggest \u201cour alliance with the mad politics of the US might have run its course\u201d, adding \u201cgoodbye US-led alliance structures\u201d.<\/p>\n

Evans, foreign minister between 1988 and 1996, claimed Trump\u2019s recent actions \u201cput beyond doubt that his America has zero respect for international law, morality, and the interests of its allies and partners\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crazy irony of the whole project [Aukus] has always been that it commits Australia to spending eye-watering amounts to build a capability supposed to defend us from military threats which are in fact most likely to arise simply because we have that capability \u2013 and are using it to support the US in some conflict not in our interests to engage, without any guarantee of support in return should we ever need it,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n

Both Carr and Evans have long criticised the Aukus pact, but Evans said recent developments required an urgent rethink about the military agreement.<\/p>\n

Trump endorsed the military agreement between the US, Australia and the United Kingdom when he met with Albanese in Washington in October. Aukus was put under review by the Pentagon after the Trump administration was sworn in. Australia has pledged more than $4.5bn towards building US shipbuilding capacity.<\/p>\n

The US government separately withdrew from 66 international organisations<\/a> and treaties in January, including UN commissions on peace keeping and international law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Albanese government should urgently reconsider Australia\u2019s alliance with the United States, two former Labor foreign ministers have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-403131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}