This was the week when the contradictions in Australian strategic policy became impossible to ignore.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong did her best this week to pretend President Trump wasn’t deliberately avoiding Prime Minister Albanese.

Albanese only found out his appointment with Trump had been cancelled when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the President’s early departure from the G7 Summit.

He had to settle for a meeting with US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and the economic team.

To heap one insult on another, Albanese wasn’t invited to a joint press conference Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer held.

Starmer affirmed their commitment to Aukus without even mentioning Australia. It was as if Aukus had become Ukus and nobody had thought to tell Albanese we’d been dropped.

The problem for Albanese is that the Pentagon, led by Under Secretary Elbridge Colby, is concerned that delivering up to five Virginia-class subs to Australia starting in 2032 will undermine US naval strength without any compensating benefit.

Submarine production would need to double by 2028, requiring major investment, yet Australia is ruling out any increase to defence spending.

It’s now painfully clear that Trump will not tolerate Australia kowtowing to China and backsliding on its defence budget.

Wong was never going to accept that Labor is responsible for the deteriorating relationship with our most important ally.

Instead, she accused Opposition leader Sussan Ley of inflaming international tensions for criticising Albanese’s failure to secure a sit-down.

You have to laugh. Albanese criticised Trump and his policies during the federal election campaign, describing US tariffs as ‘not the act of a friend’.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher accused the Coalition of adopting ‘lazy’ ideas by ‘borrowing policy from Donald Trump’, while Labor demonised the Opposition for its supposedly ‘MAGA-style’ rhetoric.

Wong hasn’t helped by retaining Kevin Rudd as Australia’s Ambassador to the US after comments resurfaced in which Rudd called Trump ‘a village idiot’, ‘nuts’, and ‘the most destructive president in history’.

Then came her abuse of Australia’s Magnitsky-style legislation to sanction Israeli ministers for their comments – a law meant to punish dictators guilty of torture and murder in countries without democratic accountability or the rule of law.

The sanctions delighted Hamas sympathisers and Israel-haters – and China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – but not America.

They prompted US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to urge Australia to reverse them, warning they were ‘counterproductive’ and appealing to Australia ‘not to forget who the real enemy is’. Wong ignored him.

A week earlier, Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke banned a dual American-Israeli citizen from entering Australia to speak at a fundraiser for a new ambulance station in Israel.

Burke’s reason? An anonymous complaint about a tweet that was allegedly ‘Islamophobic’.

The speaker had also supported an Israeli Defense Forces’ account of a stampede during the distribution of aid, rather than that of Hamas, a terrorist group under Australian law.

Again, Rubio and the US Ambassador to Israel appealed for a rethink. Burke refused.

Yet rather than admit there’s a price to pay for alienating allies like the US and Israel, Wong blamed the Opposition, saying, ‘It is beyond time for the opposition to (stop) playing politics with these big national interests…’. She added, ‘We were amongst a number of countries whose bilateral meetings were not able to proceed.’

Yes, Senator – but let’s face it. Australia used to be one of America’s closest allies. Now we’re in the naughty corner with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and beleaguered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Hardly a triumph of Australian diplomacy.

As criticism mounts, Albanese is so desperate to meet Trump he’s considering a snap visit to The Hague for a Nato meeting.

Oh, how times have changed. Less than a year ago, he snubbed Nato, sending Deputy PM and Defence Minister Richard Marles to the Washington summit for Nato’s 75th anniversary.

That decision gladdened hearts in Beijing. China absurdly warned that the attendance of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea would be a provocative expansion of Nato into the Asia-Pacific.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian warned Nato and its Asia-Pacific partners to ‘abandon its Cold War mentality’, ‘stop vilifying China’ and ‘stop interfering in China’s internal affairs’.

Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea all attended. Only Albanese was a no-show.

It’s not the only example of Australia kowtowing to China rather than aligning with the West. Others include Albanese’s policy of prioritising ‘stabilisation of the relationship with China’ overinvestment in effective deterrence, and his government’s evasiveness about Chinese military aggression towards RAAF planes and Australian naval vessels, and live-fire exercises off the coast of Australia.

The most blatant example was the decision in December to stop funding the Washington office of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute – a key item on China’s 2020 14-point list of grievances.

The government has also dropped the call for a Covid origins inquiry; backed off on foreign interference, and gone quiet on Taiwan, Hong Kong, cyberattacks, and human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

When John Howard found himself in Washington on September 11, 2001, he was invited into the White House to sit with President Bush and his inner circle.

Seven months after Trump’s election, Albanese has utterly failed to cultivate a relationship with the leader of the free world and presents as a naïve student radical – appeasing China and currying favour with Islamists at home and abroad.

The Biden administration turned a blind eye to Albanese’s backsliding. But the Trump administration won’t. It expects allies to pull their weight in defence – and to resist Chinese aggression.

Albanese needs to grow up and take national security seriously – or Australia  risks paying a high price.