US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth met their Australian counterparts on Monday in Washington for annual talks focused on Indo-Pacific security and countering mainland China’s increasing assertiveness in the region, including in the South China Sea and directed at Taiwan.
Rubio, Hegseth, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles gathered at the State Department, with many eyes also on the Russia-Ukraine war, a fragile ceasefire in Gaza and US military strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere that have raised questions about the use of force there.
“This is a very strong partnership, it’s a strong alliance, and what we want to do is continue to build on it. We think we have a lot of momentum behind this alliance,” Rubio said, hailing cooperation between Washington and Canberra on critical minerals, defence production and troop deployments.
None of the four mentioned China by name in their brief comments to reporters before the formal meeting began but the challenges posed by Beijing throughout the Pacific and elsewhere have been a central theme of the US-Australia relationship for years.
In a separate one-on-one meeting after the four-way talks, the State Department said Rubio and Wong “discussed their shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, emphasising cooperation to combat online scam operations and supporting further strategic infrastructure projects across the Pacific”.
US President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a critical minerals deal at the White House in October after China imposed tougher rules on exporting its own critical minerals, used in technology from mobile phones to fighter jets and of which Beijing is the top producer and processor.
After Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met later that month, Beijing said it would pause those rules for a year.
