Lowy Institute Poll 2025 Report

Relations in the Indo-Pacific

United States

When this Poll went to field in early March, US President Donald Trump, who was only six weeks into his term, had already signed more than 80 executive orders ¹ aimed at implementing his ‘America First’ agenda, repealed a range of his predecessor Joe Biden’s policies, and cast doubt on America’s commitment to alliances and international norms.

This included imposing or threatening tariffs on allies and competitors alike, calling for the annexation or acquisition of foreign countries and territories, and withdrawing from international agreements on health and climate change. President Trump was also pursuing efforts to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, but had labelled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a ‘dictator’, voted with Russia and against European allies on UN resolutions on Ukraine, and harshly admonished the Ukrainian leader in a widely televised Oval Office encounter.

US alliance: importance

Despite the significant 20-point drop in trust towards the United States this year, 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.

US alliance: defence of Australia

At the core of the ANZUS alliance is a commitment by Australia and the United States to consult each other in the event of a threat or armed attack on either party, and to ‘act to meet the common danger in accordance with … constitutional processes’.²

Donald Trump has brought new urgency to the debate about whether the United States would come to Australia’s defence should Australia be attacked. Trump’s antipathy towards alliances, and his remarks that he would not defend European allies that do not spend enough on defence (in apparent rejection of NATO’s collective defence obligation),³ have cast doubt on whether he might also step back from mutual defence commitments with other allies.

However, a clear majority of Australians (63%) continue to think that the United States would come to Australia’s defence if it were attacked. Only one-third (33%) think the United States would not defend Australia.

In previous years, in response to a similar question, a significantly higher proportion of Australians (about three-quarters in 2019, 2021, and 2022) agreed with the statement ‘the United States would come to Australia’s defence if Australia was under threat’.

Optimism about Donald Trump

When it comes to the second presidency of Donald Trump, few Australians are upbeat. Approximately two-thirds (68%) say they are pessimistic about the next four years with Trump as US president, while three in ten (30%) say they are optimistic.

This contrasts sharply with American responses to the same question in a CBS survey in the United States, fielded just before President Trump’s inauguration. Then, 60% of Americans said they were optimistic about the next four years with Trump as president, compared to 40% who were pessimistic.⁴ Subsequently, a range of other polls in the United States have shown growing disapproval of President Trump’s performance and of many of his policies over his first 100 days in office.⁵

Australia and the United States under President Trump

In keeping with the ongoing sense of importance placed on the Australia–US alliance, the majority of Australians (57%) say that Australia should remain close to the United States under President Donald Trump. However, this is down seven points from 2018, the last time we asked this question (during Trump’s first presidential term). Four in ten (40%) say Australia should distance itself from the United States, an increase of nine points since 2018.

Policies of President Trump

Regarding Donald Trump’s specific policies, every one of them we tested received clear majority disapproval from the Australian public, with the exception of his demand for allies to spend more on defence (evenly split at 49% approve and disapprove).

Australians are most disapproving of President Trump’s pressure on Denmark to sell or hand over the self-governing territory of Greenland to the United States (89%). President Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out using force to pursue this objective.⁶

Eight in ten Australians also disapprove of Donald Trump’s use of tariffs to pressure other countries to comply with his administration’s objectives (81%). At the time of fieldwork, President Trump had announced plans for 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium imports to the United States, including from Australia, as well as announced or threatened tariffs against China, Canada, Mexico, and several other countries. He had not yet announced his 2 April ‘Liberation Day’ tranche of tariffs on countries around the world.

Three-quarters of Australians disapprove of US withdrawal from the World Health Organization (76%) and international climate change agreements (74%). A similar majority of Australians disapprove (74%) of President Trump negotiating a deal on the future of Ukraine with Russian President Putin, whereby Ukraine may be asked to accept a loss of territory. President Trump’s combative Oval Office meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took place just before fieldwork for this Poll.

To a lesser extent, Australians disapprove of significantly reducing US spending on foreign aid (64%), and mass deportations of undocumented migrants (56%).

China

In the past decade, Australian attitudes towards China have undergone a dramatic shift. Beginning in 2019, Australians’ trust in China began to drop significantly, while threat perceptions rose sharply. This occurred as Canberra took more forthright positions on China’s alleged political interference in Australia, human rights abuses, regional military buildup, and on the origins of the Covid pandemic. China responded by freezing high-level contact and by blocking some $20 billion worth of Australian exports.

The 2022 election of the Albanese Labor government in Australia provided an opportunity for both sides to reframe their engagement. China reopened high-level contact, progressively rolled back its trade blockages, and released Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who had been detained in China, while Canberra talked of ‘stabilising’ the relationship.

However, in late February 2025, shortly before fieldwork for this Poll commenced, a Chinese navy task force conducted live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea, close enough to commercial aircraft traffic routes to prompt planes to divert from the area. The task force then proceeded to circumnavigate continental Australia, completing its circuit as this Poll went to field in early March.

Public perceptions of China have improved incrementally from a nadir in 2022, but overall, Australians remain wary of their major trading partner — trust, warmth, and confidence in China and its leader are historically low, while threat perceptions remain high.

China: economic partner or security threat

This year, Australians are almost evenly split on whether China is more an economic partner (50%) or a security threat (47%). This represents a rise of six points among those who see China as more of an economic partner, and a fall of six points among those who see it as more of a security threat.

Public sentiment on this question appears to roughly shadow the course of official Australia–China relations: after 2020, majority economic optimism gave way to more pronounced threat perceptions as diplomatic relations soured. Then, from 2023 onwards, as the official relationship thawed, threat perceptions mellowed slightly and public attitudes on this question became more evenly divided.

China as a military threat

When looking to the future, a strong majority of Australians (69%) continue to think it ‘somewhat likely’ or ‘very likely’ that China will become a military threat to Australia in the next 20 years. This is roughly steady from last year, and stands in marked contrast to 2018, when less than half (45%) perceived China as a future military threat.

China: Australian policy settings

In recent years, the Australian government has sought to deter and balance China’s growing military might in partnership with allies, for example through the Australia–United Kingdom–United States (AUKUS) partnership on nuclear-powered submarines. At the same time, it has continued to engage with China as its top trading partner and a major global power.

How does the Australian public judge this balance? We asked respondents to say whether Australia should be doing more, less, or about the same on a range of key issues in the relationship.

A clear majority of Australians say Australia should be doing more to pressure China to improve human rights (61%), as well as working more with allies to deter China’s use of military force (60%). About half think Australia should be doing more with China to address climate change (49%).

Views on economic engagement with China are far more mixed. On trade, the largest proportion (43%) say Australia should be doing about the same as it is now, while the remainder are roughly split between those who say we should be trading more (30%) or less (26%) with China. On foreign investment, about half of Australians (49%) say we should be attracting less investment from China, while the other half say we should be attracting about the same (28%) or more (22%).

Superpower relations

Superpowers in the future

With competition between the United States and China intensifying, more than half of the Australian public (56%) believe China will be the most important and powerful country in the world in ten years. By contrast, just over one-quarter (27%) think the United States will be the most powerful country.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that US global hegemony was a post-Cold War anomaly, and that the world was moving towards a more multipolar state with ‘multi-great powers in different parts of the planet’.⁷

Regarding other existing or possible emerging great powers, a small minority of Australians (9%) believe Europe will be the most important and powerful region in the world, and very few (5%) think India will predominate.

US–China technological competition

A central dimension of US–China competition is the contest over innovation, production, and deployment of the most critical advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and semiconductors.

The United States has long dominated innovation in and production of many advanced technologies and has put in place a range of export controls and measures to impede China’s ability to catch up, including in its manufacture of advanced semiconductor chips. But in January, Chinese artificial intelligence lab DeepSeek stunned markets with an AI model that performed on par with global technology leaders, yet was apparently trained at much lower cost.⁸

Almost six in ten Australians (58%) think that ten years from now, China will be more advanced at developing and using the world’s most important technologies. Only 12% say the same of the United States, while almost three in ten (29%) think China and the United States will be at the same level of technological advancement.

Australia’s relations with the superpowers

Australia’s relationships with the United States and China are among its most important. The United States is Australia’s main ally and its largest foreign investor, while China is the country’s largest trading partner by some margin. Yet both relationships have been the subject of intense debate in recent years: many are wary of the security threat posed by China’s growing military and technological capabilities, whereas President Trump has made the United States more unpredictable and transactional.

When asked which relationship is more important to Australia, a bare majority continue to prioritise the United States (52%), while a lower proportion prioritise China (43%). Sentiment on this question is largely unchanged from the last time it was asked five years ago, which is notable given the significant geopolitical shifts since 2020. The gap between the superpowers currently stands at nine points in America’s favour, where almost a decade ago they were tied.

More reliable partner — Xi or Trump

On the question of whether Chinese President Xi Jinping or US President Donald Trump is a more reliable partner for Australia, respondents are evenly split (45% each). Almost one in ten (9%) say ‘neither’ or that they don’t know.

Pacific Islands

Influence in the Pacific Islands

Over the past decade, both China and the United States have sought to strengthen their security, diplomatic, and development footprints to increase their influence in the strategically important Pacific Islands region.

However, Donald Trump’s election has cast uncertainty over the United States’ future involvement in the region. China, meanwhile, continues to try to expand its presence, including by inducing countries to formally recognise it instead of Taiwan — Nauru was the latest country to switch recognition to China in 2024 — or by seeking deals allowing military or security service access to Pacific Island countries.

Australia and New Zealand — both members of the Pacific Islands Forum — have ramped up their engagement with the Pacific over many years. Australia remains the single largest aid donor to the Pacific by a considerable margin,⁹ and is the only country to have a diplomatic mission in every Pacific Islands capital.¹⁰ In recent years, Australia has agreed a number of deals with Pacific countries that combine aid support with provisions to ensure Australia is consulted on security matters.

In 2025, four in ten Australians (39%) say their own country has the most influence in the Pacific Islands, surpassing the one-third who think China (34%) wields the most influence in the region. Only 18% selected the United States, and 7% New Zealand.

Last year, when Australians were asked the same question, China topped this metric. But Australia has since gained eight points, overtaking China, which remained steady. Meanwhile, the United States has dropped seven points.