NEWS WRAP

About to be invaded?

• When do we invade Australia? | On her self-titled show, conservative commentator Candace Owens suggested the United States invade and liberate Australia, arguing its citizens were "suffering under a totalitarian regime." Owen’s criticism of Australia’s “tyrannical” coronavirus pandemic response joins the increasing US media interest in the perceived lack of democratic freedoms and government overreach in Australia. In Australia, one in every 17,000 have died from the coronavirus. In the United States, that figure is one in 500. READ MORE HERE
   
• Losing Face | Facebook faced grilling by Washington lawmakers again this week, this time over leaked documents that revealed they knew of and ignored extremist groups’ efforts to spread misinformation before the 2020 election. In testimony to a Senate subcommittee earlier this month, Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen said Facebook’s ‘core product mechanics’ elevate harmful and extreme online content. The events amplified calls for Washington to investigate and regulate the company more strongly. READ MORE HERE
   
• Biden’s big fight | President Joe Biden’s approval rating hit a new low (43.4 per cent), making him the second most unpopular president at this stage in a presidency, just behind Trump (37.5 per cent). The president is pushing for a deal on infrastructure after weeks of gridlock over social safety spending. Biden is no doubt hoping to finalise the plan ready to take climate action deliverables (wrapped up in the fought-after legislative package) to the Glasgow COP26. READ MORE HERE
   
• Denied, try again later | The Supreme Court denied the US Department of Justice’s emergency appeal to temporarily suspend the enforcement of the Texas Heartbeat Act. The highly controversial Texas law, known as SB 8, remains in place while oral arguments regarding its constitutionality and private enforcement mechanism are to be heard by the Supreme Court on 1 November. READ MORE HERE 

WEBINAR | 27 October

The fate of President Biden's legislative agenda in Congress 

With a Democratic president and Democratic control of the House of Representatives and Senate, the Democratic Party currently holds a rare government trifecta. Yet less than a year since grabbing power, President Biden is staring down the prospect of Democrats legislators derailing their president’s legislative agenda. What happened the last time Democrats controlled Congress and the White House under President Obama? How are the successes and failures from that period shaping the Biden administration’s legislative ambitions? What is President Biden's pathway forward for legislative success? 

To discuss these issues, please join the United States Studies Centre (USSC) for a discussion featuring USSC Non-Resident Senior Fellow Bruce Wolpe and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Miami University (Ohio), Professor Bryan Marshall, who recently published the second edition of The Committee, an authoritative study of Congress during the Obama administration. 

Together with Sarah Storey, most recently the Minister Counsellor (Congressional) at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC, where she managed the Embassy's strategic engagement with Congress, Wolpe and Marshall will discuss Biden's legislative agenda as it moves to climactic votes that will define his legacy.

WHEN:
SYDNEY | Thursday, 28 October 2021 | 11:00am-12:00pm AEDT
WASHINGTON DC | Wednesday, 27 October 2021 | 8:00pm-9:00pm EDT

COST:
Free but registration is essential.

You can also subscribe to have event invitations and reminders sent straight to your inbox, so you never have to miss an event!

ANALYSIS

America backs competing with China

Dr Charles Edel
Non-Resident Senior Fellow, United States Studies Centre

Despite repeated assertions from the Biden administration that “America is back”, questions persist in Australia and around the world. How inwardly focused is the United States? Is US support for Australia and its allies truly bipartisan? What about American views on trade? Is Washington willing to commit the necessary resources for long-term competition with Beijing?

The answers to these questions have enormous strategic consequences for Australia’s future – to say nothing of its foreign policy, or the shape and size of its defence budget. Undoubtedly, an insular, withdrawn United States would present a very different future than a fully engaged and committed United States.

Research provides some provisional answers to those critical questions. A study by the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs suggests that the American public remains overwhelmingly supportive of the United States playing a leading role in world affairs and staying deeply engaged in Asia.

Moreover, competition with an increasingly assertive China has now become central to how most Americans think about their own country’s future and what types of policies they are willing to support. 

Much of Canberra’s attention has rightly been focused on understanding the Biden administration’s position on these questions. And what they should be seeing, is that across the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA, and the White House, the message has been clear: competition is the theme, the Indo-Pacific region is the focus, and co-ordinating with allies will be a higher priority than co-operating with Beijing. There is also, to a certain extent, bipartisan congressional support for those impulses.

Just as important to these questions is public opinion. Fatigue and dismay with the United States’ long involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with the America First approach championed by Donald Trump, led many observers to conclude that the American public was abandoning its support for the country’s traditional role of international leadership.

Yet, the numbers tell a different story. Nearly two-thirds of Americans supported leaving Afghanistan, but beyond that, there does not seem to be much appetite for a diminished global role. Sixty-four per cent of Americans believe it is in the country’s interest to play an active part in world affairs, and 69 per cent support a global leadership role.

In line with this, Americans’ support for their allies has grown. That should not come as much of a surprise considering that US support for its alliance commitments has remained consistent over the years and, in fact, increased during Trump’s presidency despite his consistent public attacks on allies.

What does seem to be driving much of this sentiment is across the board concern over China.

This is an excerpt of an article first published by the Australian Financial Review.

BY THE NUMBERS

Comparisons of emissions per capita

Sarah Hamilton
Research Associate for Data Insights

Ahead of the COP26 starting this weekend, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Australia’s net-zero emissions target by 2050, which follows similar targets from the United States and other nations. 

Morrison also stated Australia was on track to reduce emissions by 35 per cent in 2030 from 2005 levels, a slight improvement from the 26-28 per cent target set out in Australia’s commitment in the Paris agreement although still lagging behind Biden's target of 50-52 per cent reduction for the United States.

Since 2005, Australia has seen a 15 per cent drop in greenhouse gas emissions on a per capita basis through to 2018. Yet in that same period, Australia’s net emissions have increased by 3.4 per cent.

The United States is on a more promising trajectory and since 2005 has dropped greenhouse gas emissions per capita by 18 per cent through to 2018, while US net emissions have dropped by 9.5 per cent. 

THE ALLIANCE AT 70 |  The evolution of the Alliance

The critical minerals future

The following is an excerpt from The Alliance at 70

From climate change to artificial intelligence, critical minerals will continue to play a key role in the world’s economic future. The ability to maintain access to them, therefore, will only become more critical to the global economy. Beijing’s increased use of economic coercion and willingness to cut off the supply of them to the world, combined with the fact that China is the world’s largest producer of 18 of the 30 critical materials as well as a near-monopolist (more than 70 per cent market share) for five of them, provides a worrying challenge for the world. 

Amid an urgent need for governments to re-evaluate their efforts for maintaining supply chains for critical minerals, the US-Australia Alliance has made the issue a primary focus of multiple Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations in recent years, resulting in the development of a US-Australia Critical Minerals Plan of Action. One outcome of such efforts involves Australian mining firm Lynas, the world’s largest non-Chinese producer of light rare earths. In the last two years, Lynas has been awarded multiple contracts with the US Defense Department for building US-based facilities for processing critical minerals. It is expected that the completion of just one of the facilities alone will allow the US plant to produce around a quarter of the worlds’ supply of rare element oxides. 

VIDEO

Biden's Indo-Pacific Strategy

Did you miss last week's webinar? The United States Studies Centre and Asia Society Australia co-hosted a panel discussion on America's Indo-Pacific strategy under President Joe Biden.

The panel featured Richard Maude, Executive Director of Policy at Asia Society Australia, Ashley Townshend, Director of Foreign Policy and Defence at the United States Studies Centre, Susannah Patton, Research Fellow in the Foreign Policy and Defence Program at the United States Studies Centre, and Elina Noor, Director of Political-Security Affairs and Deputy Director, Washington DC Office at the Asia Society Policy Institute and was moderated by Emma Connors, South-east Asia correspondent for the Australian Financial Review.

Catch more analysis on the United States on the USSC YouTube channel.

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

#BidenAndMorrisonDoASEAN