In comments to the Murdoch-owned Australian newspaper yesterday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared that a Labor government would collaborate as closely as possible with President Donald Trump’s incoming US administration.
The interview was published less than a fortnight before Trump’s inauguration on January 20. At the same time, the major parties have begun campaigning for an Australian federal election, which must be held by May, under conditions of a deep-going crisis of Albanese’s incumbent Labor administration.
In that context, Albanese pitched Labor and himself as in a better position to work with Trump than the right-wing Liberal-National Coalition. As per the Australian: “Mr Albanese said it was he who was better placed to forge close ties with the incoming administration, arguing the relationships he had forged with regional leaders would carry weight with Mr Trump.”
Albanese touted “his positive first phone call with Mr Trump” a day after the November 4 election, stating that this had “left him optimistic on the relationship.” At the time, Albanese effusively congratulated the fascistic conman.
Those comments and Albanese’s latest intervention are highly revealing. As with the Democratic Party in the US, and imperialist leaders internationally, Albanese is participating in the normalisation of fascism, represented by the incoming administration. Trump has pledged to launch a military-police campaign of terror against undocumented immigrants, to round up Marxists and political opponents and to implement the most sweeping cuts to government spending in history.
That Albanese, a Labor prime minister from the party’s “left” faction, is solidarising himself with an administration committed to this agenda demonstrates that Trump’s program of reaction aligns with the demands of the ruling elite internationally amid a breakdown of capitalism and massive social tensions.
Albanese is not a fascist, but his government is implementing policies indistinguishable from those of the right-wing Coalition, including full support for the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, the militarisation of Australia for conflict with China and an onslaught on social and democratic rights. That includes Labor’s passage late last year of mass deportation legislation, which echoes Trump’s attacks on immigrants, as well as racist scapegoating of refugees and foreigners.
Asked about Trump’s extraordinary statements that he will consider acquiring Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, Albanese refused to comment on, much less condemn these declarations of naked imperial intent. He “would not respond to comments from the incoming leader unless they impacted Australia,” the Australian noted.
That is a carte blanche for the Trump regime, as it engages in global imperialist criminality, including the threats to acquire territory and pledges to accelerate the genocide in Gaza.
Indeed, Albanese’s entire pitch was premised on aligning with a war drive by the incoming administration. The Labor prime minister highlighted his record in forging “relationships” throughout the region. He specifically noted greater ties with Japan and India, as well as with the US under the outgoing Biden administration.
Together, those four powers, including Australia, are part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a de facto military alliance directed against China. The Quad is just one component of a web of war alliances and pacts, all explicitly aimed at preparing for war against Beijing.
Since Labor was elected in May, 2022, its centrepiece policy has been completing Australia’s transformation into a frontline state for such a catastrophic war. That has included deepening the AUKUS alliance with the US and the UK, a cockpit for war preparations throughout the region which includes Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines.
Labor is also overseeing the largest expansion of the Australian military since World War II. Every branch is being equipped with missiles and strike capabilities as part of a new defence doctrine centred on the ability of the military to engage in “impactful projection” in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
This has been accompanied by a vast expansion of US basing arrangements. US B-52 bombers will be rotated through the Northern Territory, and US nuclear-powered submarines will be semi-permanently stationed at the Stirling naval base in Western Australia.
These are among American imperialism’s most potent strike capabilities, with the B-52’s able to carry US nuclear weapons. In strategic circles, it is openly discussed that Australia is primed to be a launching pad for a US-led onslaught against China.
Albanese favourably compared his government’s militarist agenda with its Coalition predecessors. “We have improved our relationship with the Pacific,” he said. “It has been repaired. It was in disarray when we came into office.” This is invariably couched in terms of a “Pacific family,” as well as combatting climate change, which is absurd given that emissions have increased under Labor and Albanese is pledging to work with a climate-change denying Trump administration.
The truth is that Labor has conducted an unrelenting diplomatic and political campaign to bully and force the impoverished Pacific states to join the US confrontation against China. On the eve of Labor’s assumption of power, Albanese and other senior party leaders participated in a hysterical campaign over the signing of an agreement between the Solomon Islands and China. The frenzy included threats of an outright Australian military invasion.
After more than two years of continuous Labor interventions in the Pacific, Albanese’s government has taken decisive steps towards regaining neo-colonial control over its oppressed nations. Recent pacts with Tuvalu and Nauru give Australia veto powers over both states’ foreign and security policies. An agreement for Papua New Guinea to participate in the Australian National Rugby League competition contains similar clauses.
Under conditions where Trump’s foreign policy includes escalating the protracted US campaign against China, which is viewed as the chief threat to American imperialist dominance, Albanese is pledging that a new Labor government would deepen the diplomatic and military operations targeting Beijing and the corresponding military build-up.
Albanese expressed confidence that AUKUS would continue under Trump. Today, the Australian featured the comments of “Democratic co-chair of the Congressional AUKUS Working Group, Joe Courtney, and the Republican chairman emeritus of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul.”
Both declared their belief that the AUKUS alliance would be extended by the incoming administration, presenting it as a key component of Trump’s anti-China agenda. McCaul favourably claimed that AUKUS keeps Chinese leader “Chairman Xi [Jinping] up at night.” AUKUS was critical “as we work to deter CCP aggression in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
The claims that China is the aggressor in the Indo-Pacific, after more than a decade of a massive US military build-up on Beijing’s doorstep, has always been a fraud. The phony declarations against “Chinese aggression” are even more glaring, coming from supporters of a Trump administration threatening to brazenly steal the territory of friends and foes alike.
Albanese’s remarks held obvious contradictions. While proclaiming that a Labor government would collaborate as closely as possible with Trump, he hailed the ongoing expansion of Australian and Chinese trade. China accounted for almost a third of Australian exports last financial year. But Trump has threatened to escalate the US economic war against Beijing, including 60 percent imposts on its products.
That threatens massive trade destabilisation and a further slowdown of the Chinese and Australian economies.
Albanese’s comments again show that despite these dangers, the dominant sections of the ruling elite calculate that their interests will be best pursued in alliance with an American imperialism on a global rampage. This is in line with Australia’s character as a middle-order imperialist power, which has always prosecuted its own predatory interests, particularly in the Pacific, under the umbrella of the dominant power of the day, first Britain and then the US.
Whatever develops, the Trump administration will inevitably provoke political, economic and geostrategic shocks in this region and internationally. Albanese’s latest comments again demonstrate that Labor is a party of imperialist reaction and that the fight against war can only proceed in a direct political struggle against it.