Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are visiting Washington this week for the 35th Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations, known as AUSMIN. This year’s AUSMIN will be markedly different to those of previous years. It is the first under the current Trump administration and comes amid a strategic environment that has shifted sharply in just 12 months.

Australia should use this AUSMIN to set clearer expectations with the US about our respective roles in an increasingly contested region and to advance the essential conversation on how responsibilities would be divided in the event of conflict.

The past three AUSMIN meetings have been successful, locking in expanded force posture initiatives and demonstrating a shared commitment to the rules-based order. Marles and Wong have been able to advance Australia’s interests while signalling alignment with the US on regional challenges.

Richard Marles with US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (right) in Washington in August.Credit: X

This AUSMIN is different. The US has deployed its largest force presence in the Caribbean in decades, raising questions about the legality of operations against drug-trafficking vessels and whether such actions comply with the law of armed conflict. That makes the usual language on upholding international norms harder to sustain. It also comes just days after the Trump administration released

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