There’s a particular stench that rises from Parliament House when the government has decided to debase itself. It’s not metaphorical—it’s the acrid, coppery smell of desperation mixed with the expensive cologne of ministers who’ve convinced themselves they’re doing something clever. This week, as Anthony Albanese prepares to genuflect before Donald Trump, that smell is particularly ripe.

The government is dangling a $1 billion AUKUS cheque in front of the American president like a nervous parent offering candy to a temperamental child. Defence Minister Pat Conroy, already in Washington like an eager Labrador pup, is practically bursting to announce that another billion dollars will follow “shortly.” The National Defence Strategy update, due in April, hangs in the air like an unspoken threat of even more billions to come.

This isn’t diplomacy. This is a confession of weakness masquerading as statecraft.

Here’s what should be keeping every official in Defence and DFAT awake at night, staring at the ceiling in a cold sweat: You cannot make a deal with Donald Trump. Not because he lacks intelligence; he doesn’t. But because consistency, loyalty, and international commitment aren’t values in his worldview. They’re obstacles. Inconveniences. Things to be discarded when the mood shifts or a better angle presents itself.

A Man Who Breaks Things for Sport

Trump’s diplomatic record isn’t a portfolio. It’s a graveyard. During his first term, he systematically withdrew from international treaties, organizations, and agreements at an unprecedented pace. The list reads like a greatest hits of American commitments abandoned: The Paris Climate Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Iran nuclear deal, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, UNESCO. Each one torn up with the casual flick of a pen and a dismissive comment about how it was “terrible,” “a disaster,” or “the worst deal ever.”

The Iran nuclear deal is instructive. Trump promised it would be “a totally different deal.” So he withdrew. Alone. Left America’s allies, France, Germany, the UK, holding empty teacups.

Now, here’s Australia’s government, apparently having learned nothing from decades of international relations, offering Trump a billion-dollar gift certificate like it’s some kind of diplomatic hack. As though writing a cheque will somehow guarantee Trump won’t wake up on a Tuesday, decide AUKUS was a “disaster,” and abandon the entire arrangement because he’s restless or angry at someone else. Or needs a bit of drama to distract from his tariff fiasco.

The Grift, The Extortion, The Art of the Shakedown

What our defence strategists don’t seem to understand is that offering $1 billion upfront is a telegraphed confession. You’re not making an opening bid; you’re proving you can be squeezed. It signals: “We are desperate suckers. Therefore we can probably be made to pay more.”

This is Trump’s entire operating system. He looks at assets and asks: How much pressure until they crack? His casinos failed. His universities were fraudulent. His charity was a grift. But all of them operated on the same principle: identify someone who wants something badly, promise it, then renegotiate when leverage shifts.

Even now, his administration is conducting CIA covert operations in Venezuela and lethal strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean. This is Trump testing his power, seeing how far he can push before the world objects. And the world isn’t objecting hard enough, so he’s already weighing land-based military operations inside a sovereign nation.

Venezuela. Let’s be clear about what’s actually happening there, because it reveals exactly who Australia is climbing into bed with. Trump has authorized the CIA to conduct secret operations aimed at removing President Nicolas Maduro from power. The administration is executing a military intervention blueprint using lethal force. It’s all dressed up in anti-drug language but transparently aimed at regime change. When challenged on whether the CIA has authority to “take out” Maduro, Trump deflects: “That’s a ridiculous question for me to be given.” Then he adds, with characteristic menace: “But I think Venezuela’s feeling heat.”

This is who controls the deal.

The Monster Next Door

Here’s what should terrify every discerning foreign policy mind in Canberra: This is what Trump does. He redefines the rules. He abandons allies. He invents justifications for wars that suit his political needs. And Australia is now signalling to him; with hard cash; that it’s available for whatever creative reinterpretation of international law he might dream up next.

More discerning world leaders have kept their distance. They’ve watched Trump’s first term. They’ve watched him this year; the Venezuela escalations, the casual abandonment of global tax agreements, the serial U-turns on climate action. They’ve drawn a simple conclusion: Trump is a transactional loose cannon who respects only strength and despises supplicants.

Australia, by contrast, is being a supplicant. With a billion dollars in its hand.

The government’s logic, apparently, is this: If we give Trump money, he’ll be nice to us. If we promise to increase defence spending further, he’ll see us as a worthy ally. If we dangle hundreds of billions of dollars in future commitments, he’ll stick with AUKUS. If we genuflect with enough enthusiasm, the nuclear submarines will materialize.

Except AUKUS is already dead in the water. US submarine production is well below levels necessary to sustain the American fleet, let alone produce enough submarines to enable three to be handed to Australia. The abandonment of AUKUS in favor of the US keeping extra submarines and operating them from Australia has already been modelled for the US Congress, and US submarine production appears to be slowing, not increasing as AUKUS requires.

The dream has always been pie in the sky. Now we’re paying for the pie while the skyline burns.

The Murky Moral Foundations

But this is worse than miscalculation. There’s a moral catastrophe here.

By offering Trump billions without demanding human rights assurances, regional stability guarantees, or even basic democratic accountability, Australia is signalling approval. We’re saying: “We see what you’re doing in Venezuela: the CIA operations, the lethal strikes, the threats against a sovereign neighbour and we’re comfortable with it. So here’s a billion dollars.”

This is moral compromise dressed up as pragmatism. Defence Minister Richard Marles will talk about “strategic necessity,” about Australia’s “national interest,” about the “Indo-Pacific security architecture.” Bureaucratic wallpaper, all of it, meant to paper over the fundamental truth: We are bankrolling a monster in hopes of getting submarines that may never arrive. Submarines we can’t crew, service or re-refuel. Submarines for which there are no docking facilities.

Where are Labour’s dissenters? Former Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr warns how AUKUS could drag Australia into conflict alongside the US. Gareth Evans has outlined his “three key questions” the government must answer. These aren’t cranks or isolationists; they’re serious people watching a serious mistake unfold. Yet where is the party that once stood for something beyond the defence industry’s profit margins? Where is the voice that says: This is wrong?

The Punchline Nobody Wants to Hear

Here’s the thing that would be funny if it weren’t tragic: Albanese is about to offer Trump a billion dollars, promise more, and walk away convinced he’s accomplished something grand. He’ll brief the press about the “strong alliance,” the “shared commitment,” the “important discussions.” Trump will pocket the money, make vague noises about Australia being a “terrific partner,” and then, when the mood shifts, when something else catches his attention, when he decides he’s been cheated, he’ll find some reason to renegotiate, reinterpret, or quietly abandon the arrangement.

Because that’s what Trump does. Never before Trump has a president withdrawn from Article II treaties in such numbers. The man doesn’t just bend agreements. He tears them up and replaces them with whatever suits his current whim. He’s done it with Iran, Paris, TPP, UNESCO. He’s doing it right now with Venezuela, with international tax deals, with climate commitments. The pattern is unmistakable. The man is a serial abandoner of alliances.

And Australia is betting a billion dollars that this time will be different.

So, Australia’s government will be sitting in Canberra, having paid a billion dollars for nothing, wondering why their investment didn’t yield dividends. They’ll blame China, or Congress, or bad luck. They won’t blame the fundamental stupidity of trying to negotiate with a man for whom negotiation is a con, and consistency is for losers.

What They Should Have Done

Albanese could walk into that room next week and say something that actually matters. Look Trump in the eye and ask: “Mr. President, how’s that illegal war on Venezuela going? Because from where we sit, you’re using the CIA playbook from Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan. How does regime change serve Australian interests? And how can we commit to an alliance with a country that’s thumbing its nose at international law?”

He could demand deliverables. Timelines. Accountability. He could say: “We’ll contribute what makes strategic sense, no more, no less. And we’ll structure this with real commitments and consequences on both sides—not blank cheques and hope.”

He won’t do any of this. Because Albanese’s government has already decided that diplomacy is cheque-writing. That strategy is spending money and hoping for the best. That statecraft is displaying weakness to a man who feeds on weakness.

That approach works when you’re negotiating with governments that value commitment. It’s spectacularly useless with Trump, a man who views every agreement as a starting point for the next extraction.

The truth is unspeakable in the halls of Parliament House, so here it is: Australia is about to be played. We’ll hand over a billion dollars, promise more, and get nothing but a pat on the head and a vague commitment that Trump will think about later; if he thinks about it at all. By then, he’ll be angry about something else, or bored with the arrangement, or convinced that someone else is getting a better deal and he’s been cheated.

And we’ll have no recourse, because we went in offering the gold before we even understood the game.

The Reckoning Nobody Sees Coming

The worst part? When this falls apart, and it will, Defence will blame Congress, budget constraints, “unexpected geopolitical developments.” The government will insist they “maximized Australian interests” under “difficult constraints.” None of them will ever say the obvious thing: We negotiated with a con artist and we lost.

Australia deserves better than this. Better than a government that confuses spending money with making strategy. Better than a leadership that mistakes buying friendship for building alliances. Better than a nation reduced to offering bribes to a man notorious for taking them and walking away.

We could have stood for something. We could have demanded clarity and accountability. Instead, we’re standing in the anteroom with our billion-dollar cheque, hoping against all historical evidence that this time will be different.

It won’t be. And when the dust settles, we’ll all be left looking sillier, sadder and more pathetic contemplating just how thoroughly our dumb government has jumped to play the US patsy.

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