As Australia’s newly re-elected government seeks to navigate the shoals of President Donald Trump’s new world, it will behove us to think beyond our tariff concerns and AUKUS and focus on Southeast Asia.

We now understand that the US is not the same comforting behemoth it may once have seemed to be. Some aspects of Trumpism will pass.

America may again see better angels. But they will not be the same angels. It will be a different country.

We used to talk of “the West” as the group of like-minded developed democracies extending from North America to Europe, and including, in our region, Japan, South Korea and Australia.

The sight of President Trump and his co-bully JD Vance berating Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office brought home the fact that there are now two “Wests” – the United States, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other.

There has always been a tension in our international policy between the demands of our alliance with the US and our regional aspirations. The task of reconciling the two is about to become harder.

First, on the alliance. We need it.

The Trump administration’s handling of Ukraine and its treatment of NATO have raised concerns as to whether American allies in this region – Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia – will be treated similarly. Thus far, the administration has claimed that its security commitments are solid.

But the fear remains that the Americans could either be attracted to a deal with China to the exclusion of the........

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