Observation
Despite the significant 20-point drop in trust towards the United States in 2025, Australia’s alliance with the United States, known as ANZUS, continues to garner widespread support among Australians. Eight in ten (80%) continue to say the alliance is ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ important for Australia’s security, steady on last year (83%).
This majority view of the importance of the alliance to Australia has been one of the most resilient features of Lowy Institute polling. It has largely withstood leadership changes and political swings in the United States, holding at a strong majority throughout Donald Trump’s first term.
Nevertheless, on average over the past two decades, Australians have placed more importance in the alliance during the terms of Democratic presidents (Obama and Biden) than Republican presidents (Bush and Trump), when support for the alliance waned. It is too early to tell if this pattern will be repeated during Trump’s second term. To date, the lowest ebb of support for the alliance was in 2007, during President George Bush’s war on Iraq. Even then, almost two-thirds (63%) of Australians said the alliance was important to the country’s security.