You’ve got to raise an eyebrow at the chutzpah of the United States demanding to know how Australia would behave militarily in the event of a Chinese conflict with Taiwan when its own president is the epitome of unreliable and unpredictable.

It’s the equivalent of one partner in a marriage demanding that they receive an ironclad commitment that you will never leave them while they strongly reserve the right to walk out whenever they like. Sounds like a terrible relationship, toxic even.

US President Donald Trump has proven unprepared to stick to a consistent position in the current active theatre of Ukraine, let alone a crisis that hasn’t yet materialised but looms large in Taiwan.

US foreign policy looks chaotic and confused 

Late last month, officials at the Pentagon signed an order stopping the delivery of a wide variety of weapons to Ukraine just as Russia was launching its most intense attacks. The reasoning was that the US needed to safeguard its own stockpiles.

Trump — the actual commander-in-chief — then admitted he actually didn’t know that the deliveries had been halted and that the arms shipments would resume. 

The confusing tale — with a thankfully positive outcome if you believe in the defence of a democratic nation that is facing a violent invasion — is a cautionary one about the erratic way US foreign and defence policy is now being made. What this all means in our own region is troubling. Some hardheads point to the outcome — Trump did change the policy after all. But that’s a very optimistic way of viewing something that looked chaotic and confused.

This is the situation in a current war playing out in Europe. A backflip, uncertainty and confusion. But the US wants us to clarify our own position on a future war in our region.

It comes amid reports of a push by US Defense Undersecretary Elbridge Colby for allies to make clear if they would commit troops to a conflict with China over Taiwan.

Colby has been pushing defence officials from Japan and Australia to declare their positions in meetings over the issue, according to a report in The Financial Times.

This is the man leading a US review of its nuclear submarine deal with Australia under the three-nation AUKUS partnership following concerns the plan to supply the subs would harm the US Navy and the “America First” approach.

AUKUS complicates relationship

Acting Defence Minister Pat Conroy told me on Insiders that the Albanese government would not commit troops to possible future conflicts in advance, saying the decision to go to war would be one for the government of the day.

Conroy says Australia’s policy has long been clear.

“The sole power to commit Australia to war or to allow our territory to be used for a conflict is the elected government of the day. That is our position,” he said.

When pushed on what Australia was telling the US behind closed doors about the prospect of war over Taiwan, Conroy said he did not engage in “hypotheticals”.

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Conroy is correct to defend Australia’s right to decide when all the facts are known — but the complicating factor here is we are already deeply tied to the US through AUKUS, which leaves a large question mark over the expectations that might indeed come loaded with that arrangement down the track. Those expectations may or may not be in our national interest, and it is still unclear what they might look like.

According to Conroy, the Trump administration’s review of the AUKUS partnership is unfinished as its slated deadline arrives. Conroy told Insiders the Australian government was “engaging at the most senior levels” and was optimistic the US review would endorse the military pact. But would it remain status quo? The same as was originally intended under the Morrison and Biden governments? Who knows. Certainly not us.

China is love-bombing us 

All this uncertainty comes as the Chinese government rolls out the red carpet for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. 

We are in an upside-down world now, where our greatest potential geopolitical adversary in our own region is love-bombing us and acting like the “adult” trading partner, while our real ally demands commitments from us it is not prepared to make itself. Awkward? 

Spare a thought for the prime minister who must, over the next week, walk the delicate line of taking the relationship to a higher level economically while remaining staunch in our message around aggression in the South China Sea and human rights issues. Issues that matter enormously and must be vigorously raised at the highest levels.

Timing is everything of course and this all comes while the Talisman Sabre war games start on Australia’s northern coast. The biennial exercise for allies is led by the Australian and US forces.

Conroy on Sunday conceded it would be “unusual” for China not to surveil the joint military exercise and revealed the Australian government would “adjust accordingly”.

“It would be unusual for them not to observe it,” he told the ABC.

“We will obviously observe their activities and monitor their presence around Australia, but we’ll also adjust how we conduct those exercises.

“We’ll observe these exercises to collect intelligence around procedures, around the electronic spectrum and the use of communications, and we’ll adjust accordingly so that we manage that leakage.”

Conroy said China had surveilled Talisman Sabre since 2017 and it would be “very unusual if they didn’t do it”.

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Time to take the relationship up a notch

The war games are an important exercise in the defence alliance — but come at a politically sensitive time as these two enormously important relationships enter into some friction once again.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says Albanese’s trip to China this week will be about transitioning Australia’s diplomatic relationship from a stabilisation phase to a strengthening phase, citing the economic opportunities of this transition.

It might be the time to enter a strengthening phase with the US too — an alliance the Australian public is increasingly sceptical of, as it witnesses a president that seems to care very little about how any ally views his random decision-making and rationale.

The spectre of big tariffs coming our way on pharmaceuticals is one of the next big challenges the country will have to face. 

On this, and our many other conundrums with the US, Justin Wolfers — an Australian economist based in the US —had this blunt assessment: “Part of me that’s an Australian finds the following very painful. The answer is nobody over here cares. But it’s not just Australia, in fact that’s been the same disdain they’ve treated far larger economies.”

Keep calm and carry on.

Patricia Karvelas is host of ABC News Afternoon Briefing at 4pm weekdays on ABC News Channel, co-host of the weekly Party Room podcast with Fran Kelly and host of politics and news podcast Politics Now.