Australians strongly disagree with key policies of US President Donald Trump, and have overwhelmingly lost trust in the United States to act responsibly in the world, according to the Lowy Institute’s 2025 poll.
Despite this, 80% of people say the alliance is “very” or “fairly” important for Australia’s security, only fractionally down on last year’s 83%.
The poll also found people nearly evenly divided on whether Peter Dutton (35%) or Anthony Albanese (34%) would be the better leader to manage Australia’s relations with Trump.
But Albanese rated much more strongly than Dutton as better able to manage Australia’s relationship with China and President Xi Jinping (45% to 25%).
Albanese was also well ahead (41%-29%) when people were asked who would be more competent at handling Australia’s foreign policy over the next three years.
The poll comes as the “Trump effect” has overshadowed the campaign and increasingly worked against Dutton.
Labor has cast Dutton as having looked to the US for policies, such as his proposed cuts to the public service. It has labelled him “DOGEy Dutton”, a reference to Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The Lowy poll of 2,117 people was taken between March 3 and 16. This was after Trump had announced plans for a 25% tariff on steel and aluminium imports, and other tariffs, but before his “Liberation Day” regime, which saw a 10% general tariff hitting all countries.
Trust in the US has plummeted since the last Lowy poll in 2024, with nearly two-thirds of respondents (64%) having little or no trust in the US to act responsibly in the world, compared with 44% a year before.
This is a new low in the poll’s two-decade history. Trust fell dramatically among older voters. Trust was already relatively low among younger voters, and fell by a smaller margin.
On various Trump stances, the poll found Australians most disapproving (89%) of Trump’s pressure on Denmark to sell or hand over its self-governing territory of Greenland to the US.
More than eight in ten (81%) disapproved of Trump’s use of tariffs to pressure other countries to comply with his administration’s objectives. Three-quarters disapproved of the US withdrawing from the World Health Organization (76%) and from international climate change agreements (74%).
In addition, three-quarters (74%) disapproved of Trump negotiating a deal on the future of Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin that might require Ukraine to accept a loss of territory.
The dramatic Oval Office showdown between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US Vice President JD Vance took place just before the survey.
Australians also disapproved of the US cutting spending on foreign aid (64%) and undertaking mass deportations of undocumented migrants (56%).
On Trump’s demand that US allies spend more on defense, people were, however, evenly divided (49% approved/disapproved).
Michelle Grattan is professorial fellow, University of Canberra
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