Australia and the United States: An Alliance for the Future

Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women Marise Payne, Australian Minister for Defence Linda Reynolds, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper met for AUSMIN 2019 in Sydney on 4 August 2019. The Ministers and Secretaries set a path forward for the Australia-U.S. alliance to build a secure, prosperous future. The two countries intend to work together to:

Indo-Pacific prosperity and stability

• Provide principles-based, sustainable and inclusive infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific, including through the Australia-Japan-US Trilateral Infrastructure Partnership. Following the successful trilateral mission to Papua New Guinea, both sides intend to support a Trilateral Infrastructure Partnership mission to Southeast Asia in the second half of 2019
• Build effective institutions and governance through coordinated development efforts in the Indo- Pacific, including instituting a Development Dialogue in 2020 in Australia
• Enhance critical mineral supply chain resilience by holding a Australia-US Critical Minerals Dialogue, in Washington DC, to be preceded by stakeholder engagement in Perth
• Work together to support a secure, reliable and affordable supply of energy in the Indo-Pacific, including by holding the second Energy Security Dialogue in 2019, pursuant to the US-Australia Strategic Partnership on Energy
• Promote freedom of navigation and overflight, and other lawful uses of the sea, in accordance with international law, including UNCLOS
• Continue cooperation and coordination for capacity building on maritime issues with Indo-Pacific countries
• Further deepen trilateral cooperation with Japan, and enhance engagement with India, including through the Quad
• Coordinate approaches to the Indian Ocean, including enhancing maritime security and oceans governance

Deepen Southeast Asia engagement

• Promote sustainable development in the Mekong, including through initiatives to improve water governance, address transnational crime, expand cooperation in connectivity and support regional architecture such as ACMECS and the Mekong River Commission
• Strengthen ASEAN centrality and the ASEAN-led regional architecture
• Support the implementation of ASEAN's Indo-Pacific Outlook through practical projects in areas of maritime security, connectivity, Sustainable Development Goals, and economic development

Step up Pacific engagement

• Support the implementation of the Boe Regional Security Declaration, including through:
  1. The Pacific Environmental Security Forum
  2. Collaboration between the Australia Pacific Security College and Asia Pacific Centre for Strategic Studies
• Accelerate coordination on economic development, infrastructure, defence, policing, maritime security and environmental security in the Pacific

Reaffirm our global partnership

• Reaffirm the need for North Korea to abandon its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs, emphasize the need for the international community to continue to maintain pressure on North Korea until denuclearization, and work together in support of the international effort to enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions on North Korea
• Support stability and security in the Middle East in the face of destabilising state and non-state actors
• Preserve freedom of navigation and regional maritime security in the vital sea lanes of the Middle East
• Prevent an ISIS resurgence in Syria and Iraq, including through our activities under the Global Coalition against ISIS, including our support for Iraq's counter-terrorism capability development.
• Eradicate the threat of ISIS and its affiliates in the Indo-Pacific, including preventing movement of ISIS fighters throughout Southeast Asia
• Enhance counter-terrorism capacity building in the Indo-Pacific

Intensify focus on transnational challenges

• Strengthen our partnership on countering foreign interference, including in the Pacific Islands
• Deepen cooperation in the development of cyber capabilities
• Build resilience in our respective critical infrastructure and sensitive sectors, including critical technologies
• Enhance engagement on civil space cooperation activities and pursue a potential Government to Government Space Cooperation Agreement
• Build capacity in the Women, Peace and Security agenda

Deepen longstanding defence cooperation

• Build interoperability and the ability to work more closely with regional partners
• Enhance defence engagement and capacity building with partners in Indo-Pacific
• Strengthen our ability to work closely together to respond to developments in the Indo-Pacific and to improve coordination of responses to shared challenges in the region
• Deepen defence collaboration in capability development, science and technology and industrial cooperation, including further cooperation on emerging and leading edge technologies like hypersonics, space and cyber
• Increase security cooperation with partners in the region through joint training and exercise opportunities

Maximise our economic relationship

• Maximize the benefits of the Australia - United States Free Trade Agreement for our people, which has already increased two-way trade to $65.5 billion USD in 2018, creating more than 500,000 jobs
• Accelerate two-way investment: in 2017, U.S. direct investment in Australia was $168.9 billion USD and Australian direct investment in the United States was $66.7 billion USD
• Focus on growth and security of future-oriented sectors of the economy, including critical minerals, civil-space industry, and energy

Focus on youth and the future

• Support to the United States Studies Centre and the American Australian Association to offer additional US Congressional internships
• Fund an additional four Fulbright scholarships to mark the 70th anniversary of the Australia-US Fulbright Treaty, the Fulbright Professional Scholarship in Indo-Pacific Studies
• Strengthen a strong science, technology and innovation cooperation including in emerging fields of artificial intelligence and quantum sciences