Biden Official Urges Australia to Press Trump to Revive Quad

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(Bloomberg) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese must use his upcoming meeting with President Donald Trump to make the case to revive the Quad security group, former US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said.

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This will be the “most consequential meeting of an American and an Australian in living memory,” Campbell said Wednesday during a fireside chat at a United States Studies Centre event in Sydney. While the typical approach to such leaders’ talks might be to focus on narrow economic and bilateral issues, Campbell urged Albanese to broaden the discussions.

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The future of the Quad “kind of hangs in the balance right now because of the alienation between Delhi and Washington,” he said. The Quad is an informal gathering of the US, India, Japan and Australia aimed at countering China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Its prospects have darkened since the US slapped 50% tariffs on India in August, half of which was a penalty for New Delhi’s purchases of Russian energy. Trump’s move threatens to undermine past administrations’ efforts to draw India into the western orbit and away from more authoritarian regimes that hails from its non-aligned status.

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“I think the only country, the only leader that can help carefully navigate that back together is Prime Minister Albanese,” Campbell said.

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“So I think what I’m looking for from Australia is to recognize the pole position that they currently inhabit and to use that,” he said. “This is the time to demonstrate Australian leadership.”

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Campbell, who also served as National Security Council coordinator for the Indo-Pacific in the Biden administration, has been in Australia for a week that also included a visit to Canberra. He has previously said that while he wants to support the current US administration, he is concerned about the targeting of American allies as well as rivals in Trump’s tariff program.

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Campbell is currently  chairman and co-founder of the Asia Group and regularly counsels C-suite executives on how to navigate geopolitical and economic risks across Asia and the wider world.

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Albanese is expected to meet with the US president in New York next week on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, their first face-to-face discussions since Trump returned to office.

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“It’s very important that Australia makes the argument to the United States — hey we’ve got to be informed we have to understand where you’re heading on China’,” Campbell said. In addition, “Australia can make an argument for the United States to continue to step up in the Pacific.”

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He warned “Australia cannot manage this enormous strategic challenge alone.”

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Campbell also said a treaty with Papua New Guinea that Albanese is due to sign is “historic and should be touted as such.”

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The “animating worry” in the US right now is “really the idea of 1941 bolt from the blue, something that China would do with short notice across the Taiwan Strait.” Campbell was likely referring to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the US into World War II.

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Still, he described such a scenario as “unlikely,” at least in the near-to-medium term, saying Chinese President Xi Jinping doesn’t have the confidence in his own military to undertake such an ambitious offensive campaign.

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“I think the real risk between the United States and China is miscalculation,” Campbell warned.

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