Washington: Australia’s reputation among US conservatives went from “beloved to shot” during the COVID pandemic, MAGA stalwart Steve Bannon says, but the relationship has been resuscitated under Donald Trump and Anthony Albanese.

Bannon said Australia’s geostrategic importance in the Indo-Pacific was well understood within the Trump administration, which was recognised when the US president firmly recommitted to the AUKUS submarine agreement in October.

“I think you see President Trump and his team drawing closer to Australia,” Bannon told this masthead in an interview marking one year since Trump’s return to the White House.

“Australia is the linchpin for the Indo-Pacific. So I think the prime minister there [Albanese] – although not my cup of tea politically – Australia is as close with President Trump as I think it’s been in a long time.”

Bannon was fully supportive of AUKUS, under which Australia will buy at least three nuclear-powered attack submarines from the United States in the 2030s, and said he had no doubt the vessels would materialise, despite doubts about American shipbuilding capacity.

“I don’t think the deal would have been agreed to if they weren’t going to be delivered,” he said. “Quite frankly, they need to be delivered to Australia … [because] Australia is absolutely strategically central to what happens in East Asia and the Indo-Pacific.

“I just hope that we can work for closer relationships, and hopefully, you get a more MAGA-type government, so there can really be an even closer bond.”

Bannon was Trump’s chief strategist during his first term, and went to prison rather than testify about the January 6, 2021 riots. He was not given a White House job this time, but retains significant influence in the MAGA universe through his War Room podcast.

Albanese and Trump had a successful meeting in October in which they agreed to co-operate on the supply of critical minerals, and Trump declared AUKUS was “full-steam ahead”. There had been criticism from the federal opposition about why it took nine months for the face-to-face meeting to occur.

Bannon said Australia’s image in the US, particularly among Trump supporters, was “shot” by its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which involved harsh lockdowns, border closures and vaccination mandates.

“People culturally are so close to Australia and just think the world of Australia … [so] COVID was a shock. We covered it a lot [on the podcast] because our jaws dropped,” Bannon said.

“I think the draconian overreach of the globalists in Australia – and quite frankly, the quite weak pushback – really shocked people quite dramatically.

“We used it as an example: if we don’t get our shit together here, if we don’t get Trump back, if we don’t win the midterm elections, if we don’t turn this around, politically we’re going to end up like Australia.

“But people in your country should understand you went from beloved to kind of shot.”

Australia’s strict pandemic rules, particularly closed borders, helped keep cases and deaths extremely low until the Delta outbreak in 2021, shortly before the mass vaccine rollout.

Bannon’s remarks about Australia’s coronavirus restrictions reflect a widespread view among US conservatives that is frequently articulated to this masthead at political events.

Another view on Australia – held by some China hawks in Washington – is that Canberra can be inconsistent on China and reluctant to call out Beijing explicitly, particularly under Labor governments.

But Bannon, who counts himself as one of the most anti-Chinese Communist Party figures on the right, was less concerned, and compared Albanese’s approach to that of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who struck a trade deal in Beijing last week as he heralded a “new world order”.

“Carney went and kowtowed. You guys have not kowtowed,” Bannon said. “Yes, there are some issues, but the submarine deal shows that there is a strong partnership between the UK and Australia and the US.”

He said that although Trump was not as “hard core” on China as he would like, the president was using oil and energy to squeeze Beijing, including by seizing control of Venezuela’s oil supplies and threatening 25 per cent tariffs on any countries doing business with Iran, which includes China.

Bannon said Trump feared that severe disruption to trade between the US and China – the world’s largest economies – might lead to a global recession or depression, “and he doesn’t want to chance that”.

But he argued Trump could easily cut off China’s oil supplies from the Gulf if it wanted to – as then-CENTCOM commander General Michael Kurilla told US Congress in 2023 – and strictly limit the sale of US-made chips.

“He would put the CCP in the exact same position Japan was in the summer of 1941. I think President Trump realises, as a student of history, he might not want to do that,” Bannon said. “The Steve Bannons of the world would love to do that. I think that would lead to breaking them.

“That’s also why I think Australia is so critical to this conversation. Geo-strategically, you guys – even as much as India – are really the linchpin of the anti-CCP coalition. You have to have Australia, you have to have a robust Australia.”

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/absolutely-central-why-australia-is-in-trump-s-good-books-according-to-bannon-20260120-p5nvap.html

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