Why Should We Care About U.S.-Australia Relations in the Age of Trump? | with Former Ambassador Joe Hockey
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And welcome once again to Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific, brought to you by IEJ Media and our sponsor, Bauer Group Asia. We'll tell you more about them in due course. I am the former military officer, Ray Powell. Over there, once again, is my friend and former boss, Jim Caruso, the former diplomat. Jim, how are you? I am well. I am glad I'm not former everything else. Well, I understand we have a guest from down under. Ha ha ha.

Is that a reindeer? What? No. Come on now, Jim. For our audio listeners, he was holding up something that is unidentifiable. Our guest today, I am very pleased to say, is the Honorable Joe Hockey, Ambassador Joe Hockey, 20 years a member of parliament in Australia with the Liberal Party, culminating in time as treasurer, equivalent to a U.S. senator.

Secretary of the Treasury. Then he went off to be ambassador to Washington for his sins. When he was there, I was acting ambassador in Canberra. We share two scars together, I guess. And then in 2020, he founded a firm in Bondi Partners, which helps companies between US and Australia invest and trade with each other. So Joe, it's so good to see you again. Welcome.

Great to be with you, all of you, all three of you. That's right. You can't get too many of us. You mean there's three of us? Yeah, that's right. For our audio listeners, this is actually a kangaroo and the joey. You'll have to believe him because it doesn't look like it. Anyway, Joe, the way we always start these things is we try and ask the question, why should we care? I guess the question is, why should we care what Trump does if you're Australian?

Well, I think there's no doubt in my mind that Donald Trump is the most powerful figure in the world at the moment. And in fact, you know, Jim, I think Donald Trump's the most powerful figure in American politics for the last 150 years. And because he has...

taken over the Republican Party, and he's created a movement, the likes of which we haven't seen before in American politics. Of course, you know, here I am talking to a group of Americans, but as an outside observer, I think his MAGA movement, as he calls it, and together with his charismatic leadership,

makes him an incredibly formidable person. And his decision-making is having an impact on the most powerful nation on earth, but also the biggest single economy on earth. Joe Hockey, you were ambassador during the transition from Obama to the first Trump administration. And in your chapter, in your book, in your memoir, you titled that chapter Trumpageddon.

So tell us what Trumpageddon was like in 2017. How did you experience it in Washington, D.C.? Well, you know, a tsunami, a political tsunami hit the town, and as he promised. But Trump 1.0 was disorganized. I don't think they really expected to win. He was very superstitious about doing any preparations, right?

for government because he thought that it put a knocker on his campaign. And so they were unprepared. And given that they were at war with not only the Democrats, but a big chunk of Republicans, particularly those that had served in previous administrations,

There were a number of people appointed into positions that had absolutely no idea how to run an administration, how to run departments. And, you know, I think the... Look, people in the Obama administration were friends of mine from the time when I chaired the G20. You know, so President Obama and Jack Lew, Secretary of the Treasury and so on, I mean, they...

you know, everyone was pretty exhausted at the end of the eight years, which was quite a revelation to me. I, you know, I'd previously been a minister in government and gone for nine, ten years. And, yes, you do get exhausted at the end of that time. But I thought maybe they'd still have some energy at the end of the eight years. But the Amarna administration by that stage was really exhausted. And...

Trump came in with high energy and no plan. And as a result, it was chaotic and unpredictable. This time around, I think it's much more predictable. The policies are as you would expect. The delivery is more like political blitzkrieg.

flooding the zone, as you guys say. But it is political blitzkrieg because, you know, so much has happened in such a short period of time. Well, one of the things you worked on successfully while you were ambassador was helping Australia avoid the tariffs on aluminum and steel. Yeah. Trump won. Now we have under Trump too, tariffs on aluminum steel imports from all countries, including Australia. So, yeah.

Is it that he misses you and wishes you were back to help Australia avoid this? What's different this time? Well, I mean, they've come much earlier in the administration this time. And look, there is a long backstory to this. We worked really hard to convince the president directly at the time, the prime minister and all ministers that

Really, Australia was not a military threat. I mean, you will recall that Australia had that... The first phone call between our Prime Minister and Donald Trump went very badly after Donald Trump was elected because the US was taking a whole lot of Australian refugee applicants and Donald Trump said, well, why are we taking them? Unaware that we were doing other favours for the US that he, you know, batted to the US at the time. There was a deal there. So it went very badly.

We rebuilt the relationship by using, you know, third party advocates and others to explain to the president why Australia matters to the US. And it took a little bit of effort, a lot of effort, but he came to understand two things. One is we're the only country on earth that has been side by side with the US in every single major conflict since World War I.

and that we now have an unbelievably deep relationship with the US, including the fact that we're ourselves in South Korea have big trade deficits with the US. So the US wins out of our trade relationship. But the second thing that I think had an impact on him was, and we had nothing to do with this, it was just coincidental. And I say that very genuinely. A poll came out saying, who are your closest allies?

and Republican voters said overwhelmingly our number one ally is Australia, and Democrat voters said overwhelmingly Britain was the number one ally for Democrats and Australia was about number three or four. And Donald Trump reacted to that as well. So a combination of things meant that we could rebuild from the start the relationship. And, of course, the power that he was using in order to apply was

tariffs and quotas on steel and aluminium was the national security power that the President has. And of course, how could you do that to the country that is deemed by your own voters to be your closest ally? So we weren't really a threat. But having said that, the people that were most upset about our exemption were

including Peter Navarro and Bob Lighthizer. Peter Navarro is back again. Bob Lighthizer's acolytes are very much there as well. And the people that argued against putting tariffs and quotas on Australia, they're all gone. You know, the Chief of the Military, the Secretary of Defence, the Secretary of State, the Vice President, Chief of Staff to the President,

they're all gone and there's no other side to the equation.

Well, another person who is gone from government is the person who was prime minister at the time, Malcolm Turnbull. We had him on podcast last summer. You won't be surprised to hear that he has lots of strong opinions about many things. And one of the things he has a strong opinion about now is Donald Trump 2.0. And he says he has called for a review of, quote, every aspect of our alliance with the Americans, because while we can always hope that

that the United States and other allies will come to our aid, we cannot assume they will. What do you think about that? Well, I think it's alarmist and I think it's not true. I mean, the US will be a friend and has always been a friend and a mate. And I don't think there's any issue about it at all. I think you'll find that the United States goes through ups and downs.

Nothing ever goes in a straight line. But, you know, I mean, how could we not be closer than we are today? I mean, at various points, Australia's had military personnel in 32 US states. We are...

fully integrated, as you know, Ray, at a military level. You know, we have the same combat systems on our boats, which are joint venture developers on our ships. Our F-35 strike fighters are, you know, fully integrated with the US system. And then, you know, for the, I think it's 17 now, intelligence agencies that are operating in the United States, every single one of them has Australians in it, as do the US have

people in our agencies and of course, in terms of gathering intelligence, I don't know if there is anyone that is at an operational level closer. I mean, obviously, you know, the biggest threat in the world at the moment is the rise of China. And so we help to play a very, very significant role in partnership with the US. More importantly than anything, Americans and Australians are like brothers and sisters.

And, you know, if someone attacks the family, then as America has done in the past, in World War II, where a million American soldiers came to Australia to defend it and led the attack on Japan. And then after 9-11, we were the first troops on the ground. And we were the ones that invoked the treaty with the US immediately and said, we're at war.

And we're by the U.S. and we were the first troops on the ground in Afghanistan. So that's what mates do, what buddies do. I guess the critics in Australia have signed Malcolm Turnbull. It's a lot of the journalists who formerly supported the alliance are saying we need a plan B. U.S. is unreliable. It's all transactional. We need to figure out something else to do. So I guess, is there a plan B?

Well, what is plan B? I mean, we just had the Chinese live firing off the coast of New South Wales or Sydney. I mean, for the first time. Like, okay, what are our options here? You know, what, the French? I mean, they couldn't even help us make a sub. And, you know, the Brits, you know, love them dearly, mother country, long way away.

It was the mother that left the baby, not us leaving the mother. And, you know, come on. I mean, what are the options? And I keep saying to people in Australia, what language do you want to speak if there's some other nation that is going to be our primary friend? Is it Russian? Is it Chinese? Is it Mandarin, Cantonese, whatever? How's that going? I mean, seriously. I mean, the people you are going to gravitate towards are the people that share your values.

And in Australia, we believe in democracy and freedom and enterprise and community and fairness and opportunity and hope. Oh, they happen to be the very same principles that are the basis for the United States of America written in your constitution and embodied in so much that America has done over such a long period of time.

You know, it's a nonsensical argument. Let me follow up on that because I think a lot of the, as you say, alarmism is based on the idea that, yeah, but what if America doesn't believe in those things anymore? Well, I think it does. I think, you know, so this is the theory according to Joe, right? You know, the three big countries, you know, dominant countries in the world, China, Russia, and the United States.

Each of those three countries had extraordinary revolutionary wars. Each of them went on to have extraordinary civil wars. The net result of a revolutionary war combined with a civil war is people don't trust each other in a community. And in Beijing and in Moscow, they use the iron fist to hold their countries together. In the United States, it is bound together, not by an iron fist out of Washington,

It is bound together by its values, by its constitution, by the Declaration of Independence, by the belief in the flag, by, you know, the very values that ensure that you have a justice system that works, that you have a Congress that works. And, you know, yes, on January the 6th, there was pressure on the US system, but it

The US held up. It delivered. It had a change of administration. And it was a peaceful, essentially, compared to what it could be, a very peaceful change of administration. A country as big and diverse as the US is always going to have different pressures, many of which the rest of the world doesn't understand and never sees. But by God, you do work. It does work, and it is still a beacon of hope.

for nations all around the world and, most importantly, for people around the world. So continuing with our doomsaying, let's... You know, Tim, you make an interesting point. Look, you know, I mean, I spent half my life in D.C., right? I keep saying, why are Americans so down on themselves? I mean, God, you know, it is still a nation that is a beacon of hope

really for the rest of the world the rest of the world wants what you have you know and yes you've got your faults and oh god you know i mean i've lived and breathed them with you for years now but you know nothing's perfect but the difference is america aspires to be perfect and that's god that's a good thing uh sometimes uh sometimes it's literally disappointing

All right. But to get to the question I have, today's March 27th. You're stuck in that cul-de-sac. Thank you for calling into Jim's therapy session. I feel better now. All right. Election for call today in Australia for May 3rd. Yeah. And a question I have is on April 2nd, so before the elections, there are going to be supposedly the reciprocal tariffs put in place around the world by the Trump administration. Yeah. Which could very well include

Australian goods exports to the US despite a free trade agreement. Would that affect the election and the overall outlook on the alliance? Well, there's no doubt that Donald Trump is affecting the narrative, political narrative in almost every country in the world today. Let's be realistic about it. Wherever you are, I mean, most obviously Canada, but it's talk of the town in every country in the world, right?

because America is the biggest economy in the world. It spends more on its military than the next 10 or 12 countries combined. It's the most powerful country in the world, and it's always been, as I say, the beacon of hope based on values. Now, when it changes course, that is going to have a profound impact. I mean, the United States is still by far the biggest investor in Australia. It's not our biggest trading partner. Our biggest trading partner is, by a considerable margin, China.

And we sit between the US and China. And so, yes, it does have, you know, Donald Trump's actions, his words, his volatility does have a profound impact on our political discourse. You know, I don't think Anthony Albanese will be going so far as to accuse Trump

uh you know his opponent of being a trump-like figure because at the end of the day he could be prime minister again and let's deal with donald trump and frankly uh so far we've had a light touch from donald trump uh compared to uh some of the others i just uh i just remind you guys that we're one of the only allies of the united states that you've never had a war with uh let's keep it that way right so um

You know, I think Liberation Day is equal. Look, you might recall this, Jim. As ambassador, I obviously had a close working relationship with the White House and also, you know, I had a working relationship with President Trump. But as a former treasurer of Australia, I'm a strong advocate for free trade. And I went to Fulton, Missouri, where Churchill gave his famous Iron Curtain speech, railing against tariffs.

and, you know, how evil they are. And, of course, they're attacks on your own people. That's what they are. They're increasing the cost of things on your own people. And, you know, I was rung by the White House and they said, we thought you were our friend. I said, this is what friends do. They tell the truth about the things that matter. And, you know, I think we've got to push back against tariffs but also constantly remind the US that out of the trading relationship with Australia, the US is a big winner.

So you mentioned the three Chinese ships that recently circumnavigated Australia and, of course, had a little live fire exercise in the Tasman Sea. Elbridge Colby, who is about to become, we believe, the Undersecretary for Policy in the Defense Department, the U.S. Defense Department, has said that Australia needs to spend more than it's spending now

on its own defense and basically said 3% is the target number because not only is that what he believes NATO's target should be, but also Australia faces a more immediate challenge from China. Do you believe that Australia is spending enough on defense and is it spending it on the right things? Well, it's not spending enough on the feds. When Scott Morrison was prime minister and signed the AUKUS agreement,

It was the intention that the submarines that we're purchasing, Yorker submarines and the Virginias that we're buying from the US, would be funded on top of our existing commitment to go to 2% of GDP. Now, what the current Labor government has done is it said, look, you've got to absorb this.

oh, yeah, we'll deliver it in, you know, 10 years or whatever it's for money you need. But you've got to absorb it. Now, every defence department in the world can have better efficiencies. And I have no doubt that the Pentagon is, you know, at the top of that list. But...

I think one of the things that is doable is to have more private sector involvement in the delivery of infrastructure for defence. So in Australia, we're probably going to have to spend $60 billion building three submarine bases to accommodate the Virginia-class subs and the mooted AUKUS submarine and to make those bases compliant.

You know, that is a, you know, it's a real spike in the defence budget. And it's the private sector that, with some clever applications, is able to remove that volatility and allow defence to continue to invest in the technology that is going to be the game player. I mean, we've seen out of Ukraine the emergence of drones, drones,

all sorts of different drones, as a key part of modern warfare. And, you know, that's an area where there is a lot of research and development, but also I think we're also going to see, and Ray, you know this, we're going to see more and more equipment that has both a military application and a civilian application.

And so there is good opportunity for the private sector to step up with a more significant investment in partnership with the government. But having said that, we need to get to around 3% of GDP to protect the nation, to build the defences we need. So the other part of AUKUS, of course, is Pillar 2, which is supposed to be about working together across our countries and the UK on developing new material for our armed forces.

You have a company that invests, has a fund that invests in some of this. Are you seeing the barriers to that sort of cooperation falling? Is progress being made?

Well, the barriers fall, but the investment has also fallen from the Department of Defence in the United States and the Department of Defence here in Australia. Because what they've done is reallocated money to missile production, drone production. And at the same time, they've been very slow to deliver contracts in other areas of innovation. So...

You know, the biggest risk we've seen in investing in defence is when you invest in a company that has just one client, be it the Department of Defence in the US, Australia, UK, whatever it might be. And that is a huge amount of risk. If you've got a client that relies on one contract,

No matter how big that contract is, you're taking a lot of risk. There's a lot of volatility. So we are only investing in businesses that have unique capability that we want them to be able to export what they have and we are always looking for private sector commercial applications for their technology.

So one of the companies we invested in out of the US is Leo Labs, which monitors space movements. It's a really incredible company out of the US that basically maps space and sells the data to private sector satellite companies, but also to intelligence and military agencies around the world. That's a perfect sort of example where we see enormous growth

that NASA is not going to be able to meet the demand of monitoring the ever-increasing number of satellites in space. So they'll turn to the private sector. The private sector has a trustworthy, reliable piece of infrastructure that can help to address the needs, and it smooths out the costs for NASA and the US government. And so there is huge opportunity, but

Not if they don't get a leg up in the first place and governments are slow recognising the benefit of that technology.

So we are contractually obligated to ask you about AUKUS Pillar 1 because that's what we do. And there is so much hand-wringing, and for good reason, about whether or not the United States can deliver on its AUKUS obligations to help Australia acquire nuclear submarines.

Are you concerned that in a few years, Australia will wake up and find out that the United States has said, sorry, Australia, we just don't have enough? Well, of course it's a concern. But we're putting money into your industrial base to help you to increase the number of Virginias that you're producing. I understand because the third biggest shipbuilder in Australia, in the US, naval shipbuilder, is actually an Australian company called Austal, based in Mobile, Alabama.

Currently, South Koreans are wanting to have a go at trying to buy it, which is not a good idea. It's certainly not in the national interest. Even though the South Koreans are our friends, it's not in the national interest of either the US or Australia. And why? Because Austal is part of the supply chain for the submarines that we're buying. And so we want to be a part of that supply chain. We want to be a part

of the narrative that is, you know, AUKUS. And so I think the US will deliver. I think the US has the capacity to lift production of products

of the Virginia to 2.2 a year, to 2.3 a year. It needs to get to 2.6. I've always found when the US puts its mind to something, it eventually gets there. And I'm, you know, if the US isn't producing enough Virginias to protect itself in three or four years' time, then we've all got a bigger problem. Okay, let's talk about another problem. Yeah.

That's the elections in Australia, May 3rd. Incumbent, Albo versus Dutton. How do you see it playing out? What are the issues that we'll be debating? Well, it's just a traditional left-right battle. I mean, the left, Anthony Albanese, will want to talk about health, education, climate change. The right, Peter Dutton, will want to talk about economic issues, national security issues.

But the meeting ground, the battlefield, if you like, is cost of living. As it was in the US, as it is everywhere, who is going to address the challenge for everyday families that are facing higher prices? And, you know, I think generally around the world, people are disgruntled. You know, you've got the happiness index going,

And it's usually Norway and Sweden and countries that basically disengage from the world and have nine months a year of darkness that are pretty happy. So I think, you know, how do you address that? And you've got to give people hope. You know, you've got to show them a plan to get better and it's got to look like a credible plan. And also...

I despise independence. I really, you know, having third parties is, you know, a recipe for a god-awful cake. And I just think, you know, those special interests are so destructive.

And therefore, I hope that there is a decisive result one way or the other in Australia. But there's a good chance that there'll be some sort of coalition or party government. Yeah, and that's the thing. It's very messy because I was in the parliament in 2010 when Julia Gillard put together a coalition and she was really relying on two independents, both of which held

districts, seats that were previously from our side of politics. Those two people were finished. They signed up for three years, but at the end of the day, their electorates wanted a coalition government, a Liberal government, not a Labor government. But they guaranteed supply. That is, they guaranteed that the government would get the money it needs to run.

a lucky continuing resolution. They guaranteed it. This time around, it's not going to be two people. There's a risk it could be six or seven or nine. And some of them have already said there's no way we're going to guarantee that the government gets all the votes on the floor of the House, which in our Westminster system is toxic. So it's very hard to run a country when you've got seven or eight independents who all think they're prime minister. So, you know,

It could be a period of political instability in Australia. And frankly, Australians don't like that. So whenever we've had instability, we've got it out of our system. And within a short period of time, usually three years, you have another election and there's a very decisive result against the incumbents.

Well, going from the Morrison government to the Albanese government, there seemed to be a real effort to try to stabilize Australia's relationship with China. If the government were to move back to a liberal government, would you expect any change in the government's approach to relations with China? It's a great question, Ray. I think it's a more pushback from Peter Dutton.

on some of these live fires and aggressive tactics employed by the PLA, I think you'll see, you know, you'll see, you know, a more offensive sort of approach to dealing with China. You look, when we were in government and I was the Treasurer of Australia, we signed a free trade agreement with China.

I had a very good working relationship with Luo Jiwei, the finance minister of China. Like other Australians, I've been going to China many times. I mean, I first went to China when I was 13 years of age, back in 1978, second ever tour group to go to China. And it was a very different China in those days. Beijing, China.

Most people were on pushbikes, no building higher than four storeys, everyone wearing green suits or blue suits, hardly any shops. You know, people came up to me as a kid and pinched my cheek because they'd never seen white people before. This is in Tiananmen Square. And you look at China now and it's vastly different. And the great story about China

is it has lifted more people out of poverty than at any other time in the history of humanity. I mean, really, it has. By embracing enterprise, by embracing capitalism, they hate that, but they call it enterprise, I call it capitalism. And they haven't got the safety nets that we have when it goes awry. And so I think, you know, China is more pragmatic about

than people realise, but it also wants to be respected. The trouble is there's not a uniform view in China about how to earn respect. Entrepreneurs would say we earn respect by being the world leaders in motor vehicles and in facial recognition, AI. That's how we earn respect.

The leadership of Beijing would say, well, that's good, but we also earn respect by being a military power. And the PLA would say, well, we earn respect by, you know, basically doing everything but shooting down, you know, planes in the South China Sea. We earn respect by live firing.

off the coast of Australia. And, you know, as there are different views in the United States, even here in Australia, there's a vast amount of differing views in China as to what the future looks like. You know, you mentioned the amazing economic progress China made, which was in part due because of the US and Australia and others walking them into the world trading system. Correct. And they took full advantage of that and became a manufacturer to the world. People's living standards went up.

Chinese companies actually started becoming their own brands and being well-known around the world. And it seems that the decision was made, well, now that we have this ability, we're going to use it to get political and geographic power. Sure. And to hell with the rest, which was the major tipping point. And do you think this was Xi as an individual making this decision? Or was this the system needing more power

when there was a tilt out. Well, bear in mind, I think it's the Chinese constitution defines the priority for the Chinese people is the preservation of power for the communist party. Now, China doesn't really feel like a communist nation.

It feels like an authoritarian nation, but not a communist nation, right? And, you know, you look at people like Jack Ma and others who are fabulously wealthy and, you know, doesn't really embody the very best of communism. So I think that...

You know, China needs its momentum. It's like a shark. It can't stop. It has to keep swimming because it has no safety net. It needs to have that growth. And, you know, it's pretty extraordinary for a nation that large to have such significant ongoing economic growth. It's sort of unreal in a sense. The one thing that we need to think about and recognise is

is the United States has never been challenged by a single nation that is both an economic and a military threat. You know, you think of all the challenges and threats to the stability and future of the United States, it was only Britain. And you had a revolution against them all those years ago, right? They were an economic and a military threat to what was then, you know,

America, you know, pre-independence America. But ever since, it's been a pretty good run for the US. And now you've got a nation that is both an economic and a military state. But that nation also has massive demographic troubles and challenges. And the question is, how do you live with China? How do you live with them? Because

There's, you know, 1.3 billion people there and they want to be fed and they want to be clothed and they want to have the same goals and aspirations as everyone else. You know, they're very commercial. You know, they're very commercial people. But they're very focused on family. I mean, more so than our communities. You know, they believe in family and the importance of, you know, of taking care of your parents and grandparents, you know,

They're more family oriented than most Western societies. All right. Looking at the clock here, let's get you out of here on this exit question. 100 years of mateship. So I arrived in Canberra in 2017 and 100 years of mateship was everywhere.

That is generally attributed to this guy in Washington, D.C., who is the Australian ambassador at the time, who had come up with sort of this slogan, this bumper sticker to mark this centennial. So where did 100 years of mateship come from? What was it about? And was it successful?

Well, Ray, I've got to tell you, when I became ambassador, I didn't expect to become ambassador. I expected to be prime minister and sort of lost that on that one by a narrow margin. And then I sort of ended up ambassador. And even though I'd been to the United States many times, I really didn't feel as though I understood Americans. And I...

Asked my, you know, really well-respected predecessor, Kim Beasley, about the US. And he's a, you know, a military nut, a military tragic. And he, I think he knows a serial number of every US tank. And I spent hours and I said, but where did this all start? And it turns out there was this famous story, which I don't think was properly recognised, that in...

In, you know, the darkest days of World War I, we had a challenge. The Brits turned to us and said, you've got to take this town of Hamel and asked a very famous Australian, went on to become a general, General Monash, a Jewish general, one of the greatest of all Australians. And he said, I haven't got enough troops.

And the Americans had just entered the war and they said, the Brits said, well, we can give you some of these Americans. But they're untrained. They haven't been in a war for years. And so a number of companies of Americans started training with the Australians. And after a few weeks, they became buddies and mates. And as soon as General Pershing heard that,

They were going into battle under Australian command. He ordered them to withdraw. And the Americans said, we're not going to abandon our buddies and started peeling off their uniforms and putting on Queensland infantry uniforms and said, we're going to fight as Aussies if we have to. Pershing relented and allowed, and it was one, two companies to fight with the Australians and out of respect for the Americans, Monash delayed the attack until the 4th of July. He took...

the town of Vermeulen, 93 minutes, and it was one of the precursors to the end of the First World War. So we're the only country on earth that has been side by side with the US in every single major conflict since that day. And it was coming up to the 100th anniversary, and President Obama had said to me, can I call you mate? I'm never sure whether it's the right term. I said, yes, let me tell you what it means.

And then I said, come on, let's explain what it means. Because in our vernacular, no one's closer apart from family than your mate. And your mate becomes family. And so really that's where we came to 100 years of mateship between the US and Australia. And it resonated because it's true. The most valuable message in politics and in communications in the 21st century is

is a truth and it's got to be based on authenticity and it's an authentic story and it's a truth and that's the basis for the relationship going forward.

Well, Ambassador Drew Hockey, this has been a great time. You have certainly lifted our spirits. Well, I can't speak for Jim. Jim's just a grumpy guy. But you've lifted our spirits. I hope that we will see you again soon. Next time, we'll either have you on the podcast or we'll find some excuse to go visit you down there in Sydney. Excellent. Great to see you guys. And thank you very much to all of your audience. Thank you.

All right, Jim. Well, of course, we have to remind everybody that our great sponsor is indeed Bauer Group Asia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific. And Bauer Group applies unmatched expertise and experience to help clients navigate the world's most complex and dynamic markets.

And of course, although Australia is not often considered to be especially complex to Americans, it's actually quite different. And these days, you definitely need a Sherpa to help you through. So and of course, our great co-host Jim Caruso is a senior advisor with Bauer Group. You can go visit them at BauerGroupAsia.com. Jim, Joe Hockey looks and feels very much like the Joe Hockey that I remember.

Yes, he is a great communicator. He was a very successful politician. As he said, he came within a whisker of becoming prime minister, but he lost and was exiled to Washington.

I'm not sure how he feels about that, but I think he was, I mean, he seemed to have been the right guy at the right time. He was, he was really good at making the networks in Washington and frankly of working well with Donald Trump. He played golf with Trump. He tells a great story of, of not being as good a golfer as Trump. And Trump was on the green. Joe was on some spot below the green and,

And Trump is up on the green saying, hit it here, Joe. And the Secret Service sits behind Joe and says, don't hit it anywhere in Europe. That's awesome. It's in his book.

Well, so, yeah, I mean, so tell me, Jim, that that that period of time, obviously, the transition was chaotic. There were, you know, lots of people who were kind of in it. You know, and we talked before with Malcolm Turnbull about how the entire how the how the steel and aluminum tariffs were going down. What was what was his what was Joe Hockey's role? How did you perceive his role during those chaotic first days?

Well, in the first days, he was still forming his relationships with a lot of the new people in the administration. So I'd say it was chaotic. But we both had the interest of maintaining and improving the relationships. And we both knew that one phone call couldn't define the relationship either between our countries or between the two leaders of those countries. And Joe was very good about helping

ensure that Prime Minister Turnbull at the time went to a commemoration of World War II on the USS Intrepid in New York, at which he had a meeting with Donald Trump that went very well and sort of reset the relationship. But, you know, it's a funny thing because we're both working for our countries and our administrations, but we also both keep in mind the long-term interests, which are to keep things on a good course. And Joe was very good at that.

Well, we just had a great Australian diplomat. I'm going to ask my co-host, a great American diplomat, to tell me a good American diplomatic story about Australia. You have a story for me, Jim? Okay. So when you're ambassador or even acting ambassador in Australia and many other places, you get a security detail. And these guys, every time you leave the premises of the embassy or your residence, they're with you.

So one time my wife and I went to Western Australia and we were on a boat overnight to look at Ningaloo Reef. Great thing. It was a private boat with a bunch of tech bros talking about cryptocurrency at the time. Tech mates or? At the time, they were just still bros. Okay. And so our details with us on the ship.

And around midnight or something, we said, well, we've had enough. We can't keep drinking with all these guys. So we went to bed. A couple of hours later, I hear someone at the door of our cabin. And in walks a guy, apparently a little inebriated, who tries to crawl into bed with us. I said, what are you doing? He said, oh, mate, sorry, must have the wrong cabin. And he staggers out.

The next morning, when I told this to the head of our detail, the shame, the shame they felt, how they could leave us exposed. It was fantastic. And there was a lot of talking to the individual who was drunk and didn't remember any of it. Of course. And trying to make sure we were okay. And we were, because it tells, Avazmi tells story to you now, these years later.

Well, I'm not sure how I should feel about that story, Jim. I'm hoping that there's nothing that you left out there. So but let's just we'll just leave it there. I only give the PG version for you. You're very sensitive.

Okay, well, we do want to thank our producer as always, Ian Ellis Jones and IEJ Media. We want to recognize him for producing fantastic military and geopolitical graphics. I am actually working with him right now on a project that I think is going to be pretty interesting, but we will hold that in abeyance until it happens. You can follow him on X at Ian Ellis Jones as many, many tens of thousands of your viewers

of your friends do. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and follow us. You can follow us, of course, on YouTube at youtube.com at IP podcast. You can go back and watch, say, a previous one like the one we talked about with

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, which was back in the summer of last year. And we asked him, why should the Indo-Pacific care if it's Harris or Trump? And he had, as we mentioned, many strong opinions on that matter. That was episode 28. If you don't listen, if you don't watch us on the YouTube, you can always listen to us on the audio podcast, although you will not be able to see my very attractive stuffed kangaroo that we talked about at the beginning.

But it's frankly, audio podcasts is the way or the way I go. And we're on all of them, whether it be Spotify or Apple podcasts or Amazon or any of them. Finally, you can follow us on social media. We are on LinkedIn. We're on X. We're on blue sky. Of course, you can just go and find us on the YouTube. And finally, you can email us and we do read every single one. And we have taken many guest suggestions and some of them we have actually already gone with and some of them we're still working on.

but that email address is indopacificpodcast at gmail.com. Finally, once more, we thank our great sponsors, Bauer Group Asia. You can find them at bauergroupasia.com. And that is it for this time. Until next time, I'm Ray. That's Jim. Thank you, Ian. Why should we care about the Indo-Pacific?