AUSSIES OFFICIALLY HATE TRUMPS FUCKING GUTS.

The 2026 Lowy Institute Poll isn’t a survey. It’s a nation of 27 million people telling their oldest mate to get absolutely fucked. Grab a beer. This one’s personal.

There’s a number in the 2026 Lowy Institute Poll that every staffer in the West Wing should have stapled to their forehead.

That’s the percentage of Australians who do NOT have confidence in Donald Trump to do the right thing in world affairs. Seventy-nine per cent. In the 22-year history of the Lowy Poll, no American president has ever been distrusted like this. Not Dubya at peak Iraq. Not Trump Mark I, which we all assumed was rock bottom. Turns out rock bottom had a trapdoor, and the trapdoor opens straight into the grease trap behind the Mar-a-Lardo kitchen.

And it gets better. 60% of Australians didn’t just tick “not much confidence.” They ticked “no confidence AT ALL.” The strongest option on the form. The polling equivalent of writing “get fucked” in the comments box, in texta, underlined twice.

Let me translate 79% for the American readers, because your media won’t. 79% of Australians wouldn’t trust this man to watch their beer while they went to the dunny. 79% of Australians wouldn’t invite the Mango Mussolini to a shithouse backyard BBQ if he brought his own screw-worm-riddled American steaks and a slab. And given your cattle industry is currently fighting off actual flesh-eating screw worms while ours is clean, that joke writes itself, sends itself, and does its own bloody encore.

To put 79% in perspective: you cannot get 79% of Australians to agree on anything. Not the date of Australia Day. Not rugby league versus AFL. Not whether Sydney or Melbourne is more insufferable. But this convicted felon united 4 out of 5 of us in the shared, settled conviction that he cannot be trusted to do the right thing. That’s not a polling result. That’s a bloody referendum.

Before some flog cries “fake news”

The Lowy Institute is not some inner-city latte sipping collective. It’s the most establishment, sandstone-and-cufflinks foreign policy shop in the country, and it has asked Australians the same questions for 22 consecutive years. It has receipts going back to 2005. And the receipts say:

69% of Australians no longer trust the United States to act responsibly in the world. Sixty-nine per cent. The worst result ever recorded. In 2022, only 35% of us felt that way. The gap between trust in America and trust in China was 53 points four years ago. It is now 3 points. THREE. One decent news cycle from parity with the Chinese Communist Party. That is where 8 decades of mateship now sits: a bee’s dick above Beijing.

And Pew Research backs it with a sledgehammer: 76% of Australians now view the United States unfavourably. Across 36 countries and 42,151 people surveyed, 76% of the planet has no confidence in Trump, and there is not one single frikken country on Earth where opinion of him improved. Not one. He is the first president in the history of modern polling to achieve unanimous global depreciation, like a Cybertruck rolling off the lot directly into a tree.

“In 2026, the liberal international order has been replaced by something illiberal, nationalistic, and disorderly.” - Michael Fullilove, Executive Director, Lowy Institute

That’s the polite, footnoted version. The Bligh Street translation is: the arsehole burned the house down and he’s charging the fire brigade parking fees.

Now let’s talk about the betrayal, because that’s what this is

Australians are not fair-weather friends. We are, historically, the most pathologically loyal ally the United States has ever had, and I mean that as both a compliment and a diagnosis.

Every war. EVERY single one. Korea. Vietnam, when half your own allies told you to jam it. The Gulf. Afghanistan for 20 years. Iraq, on intelligence flimsier than a servo sausage roll. We are the only country on Earth to invoke ANZUS, and we did it FOR YOU, after September 11. We buried 41 of our kids in Afghan dirt for your war. We host Pine Gap. We park your marines in Darwin, the same Darwin the Japanese bombed 64 times while we held the line in the Pacific together. When America whistled, Australia turned up. Every. Single. Time. No other nation on the planet has that record. Not Britain. Not Canada. Nobody.

And what did 80 years of blood-signed loyalty buy us?

Tariffs. Slapped on a mate running a trade DEFICIT with you, you economically illiterate mongrel. Threats against Denmark, another ally, over Greenland, which 9 in 10 Australians disapprove of, and when 90% of this country agrees on something you should check the sky for the Four Horsemen. A war with Iran that sent our petrol prices through the roof, handled so catastrophically that 8 in 10 Australians disapprove of the campaign, including our own Defence Force personnel dragged along on an AUKUS training rotation into YOUR shooting war. And through all of it, not one syllable of respect. Just a jaundiced karaoke dictator standing on the world stage telling the countries who bled for America that they’re freeloaders.

We showed up to every fight you ever picked, and you treated us like a bin chicken at a wedding. Australians aren’t drifting away from America. Australians are PISSED. There’s a difference, and every word of this poll screams it. 51% of us now say Australia should actively distance itself from the United States under this president. From the country whose wars our grandfathers died in. Do you have the faintest bloody idea what it takes to move that number in Australia? It takes betrayal. Nothing else does it.

The bit the numpties will get wrong

Every drongo with a podcast will read this as “Australia goes soft, cosies up to China.” Bollocks. Read the data.

73% of us still back the alliance. 68% back the nuclear submarines. Half of us would spend MORE on defence. Majorities would sanction China over Taiwan (69%), arm Taiwan (61%), even send the Royal Australian Navy to help break a blockade (60%). And 62% of us still reckon China is likely to be a military threat within 20 years. Nobody in this country is writing love letters to Beijing. Xi Jinping polls at 20% confidence here, which brings us to the single most humiliating statistic in the entire poll:

Donald Trump: 21%. Xi Jinping: 20%. JD Vance: 20%.

The President of the United States is polling ONE point above the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party with the most loyal ally America has ever had. One point. That’s not a lead, that’s a margin of error with a comb-over. The leader of the free world and the bloke running a one-party surveillance state are, to Australian eyes, functionally the same amount of untrustworthy. Eighty years of shared blood, and he pissed it down to a coin flip against an actual autocrat.

“Support for Australia’s alliance with the United States has held up, even though confidence in President Trump has cratered.” - Charles Lyons-Jones, Lowy Institute

“Australians are highly capable of holding two conflicting truths in their heads at the same time.” - Charles Lyons-Jones, Bloomberg, June 2026

That second quote is the most quietly savage thing said on financial television this year, because the unspoken back half is: unlike the President of the United States, who’s flat out holding one.

We can separate the institution from the imbecile. We honour the alliance while despising its current custodian, the way you’d still love the family home even after some squatter filled the pool with grievances and set the shed on fire for insurance. But patience is not permanence, and for the first time in the history of the poll, 51% of Australians say the relationship with China matters more than the relationship with the US. Not because we love China. Because over $300 billion in two-way trade doesn’t slap tariffs on us and then demand a thank-you card, you absolute weapons.

Meanwhile, in our own backyard

Here’s the strategic own-goal that should have Foggy Bottom’s remaining 6 adults drinking at their desks: for the first time, more Australians say China holds the most influence in the Pacific (39%) than say Australia does (33%). Our backyard. Where we’ve stumped 38% of all regional aid over 15 years to China’s 9%. Beijing is winning the perception war without lifting a finger, because why would they bother? Every time Xi needs a win, the human tariff walks to a podium and hands him one gift-wrapped. Xi’s confidence rating with Australians went UP 4 points this year, and the man did precisely bugger all to earn it except stand quietly next to the bin fire.

You know who Australians actually trust? Mark Carney: 66%, top of the table. Luxon: 65%. Japan: trusted by 89% of us. Germany: 83%. The UK: 81%. See the pattern, plain as a dog’s proverbials? Australians didn’t stop trusting the world. The world’s grown-ups are doing fine. We stopped trusting HIM. This is a single-occupant trust recession, and the occupant has a spray tan.

The Tally: What 4 Years of This Prick Bought

2022: Australians who distrust the US: 35%. Trust gap over China: 53 points, America’s way. Pacific influence: ours. Wanting distance from America: fringe position. The alliance: bedrock, no questions asked.

2026: Australians who distrust the US: 69%, worst ever. Australians with no confidence in the president: 79%, worst of ANY president in 22 years. Viewing America unfavourably: 76%. Disapproving of his Iran campaign: 80%. Disapproving of the Greenland shakedown: 90%. Trust gap over China: 3 points. Pacific influence: China 39, Australia 33. Wanting distance from the US: 51%, a majority. Trump versus Xi on trust: 21 to 20, a photo finish with a dictator.

One column took 80 years, two oceans of shared blood, and 103,000 Australian war dead to build. The other took one bitter old conman with a Sharpie, a grudge, and 18 months of his second term.

The alliance survives, for now, because Australians know the difference between a nation and its temporary tenant. But hear this clearly, Washington, because your most loyal mate on Earth is saying it through gritted teeth: we turned up to every fight you ever had. Every one. And 79% of us have now looked at the man you chose, twice, and concluded we wouldn’t trust him to hold the tongs.

America used to ask what Australia would ever do without them.

The 2026 Lowy Poll just answered with the better question: what the fuck does America do when even AUSTRALIA, the mate who never once left early, quietly starts checking the planet for other friends?

IFLA ~ Gman

The Aussie-to-Yank Word Unravelling Index

A standing feature for our American readers, who keep emailing to ask what the bloody hell half these words mean. Australian and American are technically the same language, in the way a backyard Hills Hoist and an American tumble dryer are technically laundry solutions: you’ll get there, just with completely different emotional damage.

Shithouse: adjective meaning terrible, and noun meaning an outdoor toilet. A shithouse BBQ is therefore either a bad barbecue or a barbecue held at a toilet, and in Trump’s case we mean both, simultaneously, with catering by the man himself.

Slab: a case of 24 beers. The minimum entry fee to any Australian gathering. No, your screw worm steaks do not count as a contribution, Donald.

Dunny: toilet. As in “wouldn’t trust him to watch my beer while I went to the dunny,” the lowest bar of trust known to Australian science, and he’s under it.

Texta: a marker pen. What 60% of Australians metaphorically used to tick “no confidence at all.”

Bin chicken: the Australian white ibis, a once-noble wetlands bird now famous for headfirst dumpster diving. A majestic creature reduced to scavenging through rubbish, which is also a serviceable summary of American foreign policy since January 2025.

Weapons: idiots of unusual calibre. Paradoxically an insult. “You absolute weapons” is reserved for those whose stupidity achieves ballistic velocity.

A bee’s dick: the smallest measurable distance in the Australian imperial system. Currently the gap between trust in America and trust in China. Congratulations.

Tongs: the sacred instrument of BBQ authority. Trusting someone to hold the tongs is the highest honour Australia bestows. 79% of us have voted no.

Checking the fixture: looking at the schedule to see who else is playing. What allies do when their so-called best mate keeps no-showing and sending invoices.