So a pretty general article but this part stood out to me:
in vintage Lambie style she warned him not to “suck up”.
“[America] need[s] Australia more than what we need them, and they need our critical minerals. So, if Trump wants to play with Australia, I suggest you start getting your cowboy hats on,” Lambie said.
“… Don’t play bloody Trump’s bluff. Don’t play it. You don’t move Albo. Don’t you move on him. Don’t you dare. Don’t suck up.”
Why does she think they rely on us more than them?
Average Australian has an iphone, uses facebook/instagram/whatsapp/facebook messenger/marketplace, google, gmail and youtube, and all its services along with Apple/Microsoft, most corporates are damn near 100% Microsoft, Microsoft Windows on Microsoft laptops with Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Edge and MIcrosoft Office365, all our movies are American, all our top hit singles in music are American, TV shows, netflix, Food with McDonalds, KFC, products with Amazon, Amazon prime etc Walk around a shopping centre and count the NBA/NFL/American tshirts
Why does she think Americans rely on us more than us on them? We are deeply embedded in America at this point
There are more, and I don’t know any specific REM primarily in those three countries. But yeah, they’re three of the more important ones, alongside USA, India, Brazil, Russia and Paraguay.
I think ‘very little’ is exaggerating (apparently 11% of imports and 5% of exports), but yep, we have other options if push comes to shove.
+1 for the soft power tools being their benefit rather than ours. +1 for us hosting critical intel bases.