NEWS WRAP

Off-script, off-kilter, off-course

• White House walks back Biden gaffe | Biden’s off-the-cuff remark at the end of his Warsaw address grabbed worldwide attention with concerns the US president was calling for a regime change in Russia. While most view this as a gaffe, the White House is now walking back the comment. Amid Europe’s largest land war since the Second World War, seven in 10 Americans expressed low confidence in President Joe Biden’s ability to deal with Russia’s invasion according to a new poll. READ MORE HERE
   

• Biden budget under fire | US President Joe Biden proposed a US$5.8 trillion government budget, which critics say fails to fully account for higher debt costs and inflation. Biden’s proposals would expand personal income tax collection by 33 per cent within five years, to just over US$3 trillion. However, it is arguable that spending in defence is shrinking in real terms. READ MORE HERE
   

• Calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from January 6 cases | US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is facing calls to recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 presidential election after revelations that his wife repeatedly pushed Mark Meadows, former president Donald Trump’s chief of staff, to overturn his electoral loss to Joe Biden. READ MORE HERE
   

• Criticism over Supreme Court hearings | Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey said Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson was subjected to a "familiar hurt" many Americans could relate.  “Women of all races have had to endure often when they get into a room that they're qualified to be in, but are yet questioned in ways that are disappointing," he said. READ MORE HERE
   

• Donald Trump's 6 January call logs show time gap | Official White House logs from 6 January, 2021 - the day the US Capitol was breached by a mob of Donald Trump's supporters - show a seven hour and 37-minute gap in presidential phone activity while the assault was at its height. The presidential records could shed light on the activity of the president and his closest aides on the day. READ MORE HERE

ANALYSIS

Biden's Indo-Pacific strategy will limp along unless he champions it

Ashley Townsend and Dr Peter K. Lee
United States Studies Centre

The Biden administration has repeatedly vowed that it is “intensifying” its focus on the Indo-Pacific region and working to “revitalise” the United States’ network of regional allies and partners.

But even before the war in Ukraine, it was struggling to act on this agenda with the urgency required. Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy now faces the very real prospect of being sidelined by America’s proxy war with Russia and renewed focus on European security.

If Washington is serious about upholding a favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, it must find ways to balance its focus in Europe and Asia at once and invest more decisively in strengthening its strategic position in the Indo-Pacific.

Despite the Biden administration’s recognition that “what happens in the Indo-Pacific will, more than any other region, shape the trajectory of the world in the 21st century,” its foreign policy bandwidth over the past year has been largely absorbed by policy reviews, global summitry, and crisis management in the Middle East and Europe.

The White House has advanced some important Indo-Pacific objectives, such as settling host arrangements for US forces in Japan and South Korea, reviving a visiting forces agreement with the Philippines, convening the first in-person leaders' meeting of the Quad and expanding the Australia-US Force Posture Initiatives on their 10th anniversary.

But most of these actions were about correcting the course of US policy after four years of Donald Trump, rather than advancing new and tangible strategic priorities.

Fortunately, Biden’s foreign policy team recognises that restoring US policy to its pre-Trump status quo isn’t enough to secure a favourable balance of power and influence in the Indo-Pacific. To advance a more ambitious strategy, the administration has begun, with some success, to revise the United States’ approach to empowering key regional allies.

Last year’s establishment of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) defence technology partnership and its promise to deliver Australia a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines was the high point of this effort. Alongside a wider agenda for trilateral cooperation on emerging defence technologies, the AUKUS partnership heralds a long-term commitment to Australia and the Indo-Pacific balance of power – even as it has complicated the allies’ regional diplomacy and been criticised for its vague near-term agenda.

This is an excerpt from an article published by the Australian Financial Review

BY THE NUMBERS | STATE OF THE UNITED STATES

Political polarisation quantified 

In USSC’s December 2021 survey, we asked Americans and Australians to choose their three most important issues from a list of 10, and there was a stark contrast of opinions. Take the case of climate change. It is rated as a top-three MIP by 61 per cent of Biden voters, making it the second-most salient issue for Biden voters; but only four per cent of Trump voters rate climate change a top-three MIP, ending up eighth out of the 10 for Trump voters. Climate change is one of the more polarising issues in Australian politics, but even in this case climate is the second-most salient issue for Labor voters (62 per cent rating it as top-three MIP) and the third-most salient for Coalition voters (37 per cent), the 25-point difference in salience ratings is the largest in the Australian data.

The high degree of cross-party consensus in issue salience in Australia is reassuring to a degree: supporters of Australia’s two major parties may disagree over policy, but there is, at least, consensus as to the challenges Australia faces. By contrast, the only things that Americans seem to agree on are that sexism is not an important problem and that housing costs are marginally important.

A bleak conclusion follows: Americans are so polarised today that they disagree profoundly as to what are the nation’s most important problems, let alone what to do about those problems.

This is adapted from America’s domestic policy priorities by Prof Simon Jackman in this year's State of the United States report.

VIDEO

Alliance Dinner 2022 | Message from President Joe Biden, Read by Kurt Campbell

The US-Australia alliance — and the deep, long-standing channels of trust and cooperation it has fostered between Australia and the United States — are being tasked with more issues and with more urgency than at any point in its 70-year history.

To mark not just the milestone of the formal alliance reaching 70 years, but that the US-Australia alliance is critical in meeting Australia’s great strategic and security challenges of today and the foreseeable future, the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, American Australian Association Ltd and Perth USAsia Centre hosted an Alliance Dinner in Canberra. Other speakers included Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese, Australian Ambassador to the United States Arthur Sinodinos, US Chargé d'Affaires Michael Goldman and former Prime Minister John Howard.

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

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

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