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United States-Australia relations refers to international relations between Australia and the United States of America. U.S.-Australian relations have been close throughout the history of Australia. While Australia has traditionally been aligned with the Commonwealth of Nations, it has strengthened its relationship with the United States since 1942 as Britain's influence in Asia declined and the United States influence increased. At the governmental level, United-States-Australia relationships are formalised by the ANZUS treaty and Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement. Moreover, the United States has had a considerable impact on Australian culture.

It is said that the relationship between the United States of America and Australia is similar to that of the United States and Canada. Both the United States and Australia share some common ancestry and history (see British Empire), having both been British colonies. Both countries had native peoples who were dispossessed of their land. Both have been part of the Western alliance of nations in various wars. There are numerous other similarities.

Australian frigate HMAS Newcastle alongside U.S. aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the Persian Gulf in September 2005.

In 1908 Prime Minister Alfred Deakin invited the Great White Fleet to visit Australia during its circumnavigation of the world, the fleet stopped in Sydney, Melbourne and Albany. Deakin, a strong advocate for an independent Australian Navy used the visit to raise the publics enthusiasm about a new navy. The visit marked the first occasion that a non Royal Navy fleet had visited Australia waters. Many see the visit of the Great White Fleet as a major turning point in the creation of the Royal Australian Navy, shortly after the visit Australia ordered its first modern warships, a purchase that angered the British Admiralty.^[1]

In 1942 Australian Prime Minister John Curtin put U.S. General Douglas MacArthur in direct command of the Australian military, which numerically dominated MacArthur's forces at the time. MacArthur's headquarters were located in Brisbane until 1944 and Australian forces remained under MacArthur's overall command until the end of the war.

ANZUS is the main military alliance between the countries, the alliance also includes New Zealand but New Zealand has been frozen out over its refusal to allow US nuclear powered vessels entry into its ports. The ANZUS alliance was signed after World War II, during which the ADF became increasingly dependent on the US Navy to defend Australia and decreasingly dependent on the British Navy. The alliance, has only ever been invoked once, for the invasion of Afghanistan after the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Australia has been involved in most major American military endeavours since World War II including the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War and both Iraq Wars. Australia and the Pacific played a significant role as a base for operations and for logistic support during World War II.

Since 1985, there have been annual ministerial consultations between the two countries, known as AUSMIN. The venue of the meeting alternates between the two countries. It is attended by senior government ministers such as the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Australian Minister for Defence, US Secretary of Defense and US Secretary of State.^[2]

Several presidents of the United States have visited Australia while in office, and Australian Prime Ministers have visited the United States.

The first Australian visit by a President^[3] was that of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966 in the midst of the Vietnam war, to seek support for Australia's ongoing involvement in the war. Australia had previously sent advisers to Vietnam with the first combat troops going there in 1965. The most recent visit was that of George W. Bush in 2003 who addressed a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament, again to acknowledge Australia's involvement in the U.S. led war on terror and troop commitments in Iraq.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard with United States President George W. Bush during Howard's visit to the U.S. in May 2006.

Both countries were British colonies. Historically however, while Australia was seen as a remote and forbidding island and used as a dumping ground for convicts, America is a vast and resource-rich continent which quickly attracted a large population, who rebelled successfully against the British in 1776. This did not occur in Australia, which remains a Commonwealth Realm. Australia's population is about one fifteenth^[13] that of the US. Currently, both Australia and the United States have English as their dominant language, English being the official language in Australia and in some States in America. The English language is the de facto language in the USA, though Spanish is now spoken by one in eight residents.

Both landmasses were occupied by diverse native peoples who were dispossessed of their land by the colonisers and had their cultures eroded. In many cases complete tribes and languages have vanished. Both countries had during their establishment a definite pioneer mentality whose myth consisted of land-hardened, gun-toting farmers and their families pushing into the wilderness battling the elements, the land and the native peoples. Elements of this cowboy or bush mentality still persist. Inevitably, this conflict led to both land and social despoilation of indigenous elements including animals, trees, soil quality and cultures. In both the US (Native Americans / First Nation peoples) and Australia (Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders) the rights of native peoples continues to be a source of contention.

Slavery was a major force in the shaping of the US. Hundreds of thousands of black people were taken from Africa and helped create America's farms and infrastructure before emancipation after the American Civil War. Australia also has a minor history of slavery or near-slavery: several thousand Melanesian Pacific Islanders (Kanaka's) were kidnapped or indentured for criminally poor remuneration to work in Queensland and the Northern Territory on sugar cane farms and in other industries. This practice was known as blackbirding.

In the mid-1800s gold fever in the US - particularly the 1849 California Gold Rush - inspired Australian miners also to prospect for gold. William Hargreaves travelled to California to find gold, but returned to Australia and with two partners started the Australian gold rush to Ballarat and other places. As a result of this gold rush, thousands of Chinese emigrated to Australia to pick over the spoil heaps, engage in trade with the miners, and perform menial jobs. Competition with the white miners was seminal in creating the White Australia policy, a set of barriers to immigration designed to exclude non-whites and non-English speakers.

WWII, however, was the start of a close relationship between the United States and Australia. For strategic reasons the United States used ports in Australia to station troops closer to Japan and the South Pacific Islands (Dalton). In 1951, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States came together to create the ANZUS treaty. Australia has also fought along side the United States in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, and currently in Iraq (Dalton). the Australia-United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) has been formed. Meetings for AUSMIN take place alternately between the U.S and Australia annually (Australian Country Watch). An example of the ANZUS/AUSMIN in action was after September 11, 2001.

While the US has always had an eclectic mix of immigrants, the diversity of Australia's population only increased dramatically after the World War two in particular. Thousands of European refugees, among whom were many Jewish people, emigrated after 1946 to Australia. This led to dramatic changes to Australian cuisine and culture, which till then had been almost exclusively British in nature. In the 1950s and 1960s a major government initiative saw subsidised Britons (the ten pound Poms) emigrating to Australia by ship to fill skills shortages. Major recent sources of immigration since the 1970s have been New Zealand and the former Yugoslavia, as well as significant minorities from Lebanon and other Muslim countries, India, Hong Kong, the Philippines and South America. Many of these people are political refugees or have been admitted on the basis of their skills.

Currently the two cultures continue to converge. American television and film dominate the visual media market. The free market economy, freedom of speech, and bi-cameral political structures are further similarities. Both cultures have always emphasised sport and outdoor activities, and surfing is a major shared interest in both countries. Other sports in common include basketball, boxing and wrestling. Both countries have hosted the Olympic games. Australia performs disproportionately well in sports relative to its small population. Australia's cultural and social evolution has moved away from that of Britain and more towards the Pacific hemisphere: Asia, the Pacific, and the US with some emphasis on the US West Coast. Many well-known US food and other franchises and firmly established in Australia. Clothing trends, arts, religious groupings and politics are also similar.

Both the US and Australia have been notable in their failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Significant per capita contributions to the atmospheric carbon load and the greenhouse effect make non-signatory wealthy countries a target of environmental groups. In addition, an effort to increase power production (and presumably consumer usage) by the use of nuclear power, and the propping up of inefficient industries such as large-scale rice farming has led to claims of non-sustainability of these policies: Australia is already under severe water shortage, for example. The U.S. president visited Australia in 1991, 1996, and 2003. John Howard in the past 10 years has visited the U.S. 8 times (1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006) (U.S. Department of State).

Trade between the United States and Australia is strong, as evidenced by the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.
Australia and the United States also provide significant competition for each other in several third-party exports such as wheat, uranium and wool and, more recently, in the information technology sector.

The United States is Australia’s third largest export market and its largest import market while the United States is the largest investor in Australia. The United States is one of Australia's main trading partners.

On 1 January 2005, the Australian – United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) took effect. This agreement will allow free trade amongst the two countries eliminating several high tariffs, such as that on automobiles and auto parts. The free trade agreement has also developed what is known as the E-3 Visa for Australian Nationals. The E-3 Visa allows for business people and professionals from Australia to capitalize on the opportunities offered by AUFSTA (Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade).

1. ^ Macdougall, A (1991). Australians at War A Pictorial History. Noble Park, Victoria: The Five Mile Press, 360. ISBN 1-86503-865-2. 
2. ^ 2005 Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations Joint Communique. Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Retrieved on December 10, 2006.
3. ^ Australia. US Department of State. Retrieved on November 12, 2006.
4. ^ NSDD - National Security Decision Directives - Reagan Administration. Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved on December 11, 2006.
5. ^ ^{a b} Visit of Australian Prime Minister - Robert J.L. Hawke and Ronald Reagan address - transcript. US Department of State Bulletin (September , 1988). Retrieved on November 27, 2006.
6. ^ U.S./Australian Relations (NSC-NSDD-229). Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved on December 11, 2006.
7. ^ Annual Report 1999-2000. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (2000). Retrieved on November 27, 2006.
8. ^ Annual Report 2001-01. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (2001). Retrieved on November 27, 2006.
9. ^ Media release: Visit to New York. Prime Minister of Australia (18 August 2000). Retrieved on November 27, 2006.
10. ^ ^{a b c} Annual Report 2001-02. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (2002). Retrieved on November 27, 2006.
11. ^ Annual Report 2002-03. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (2003). Retrieved on November 27, 2006.
12. ^ Annual Report 2005-06. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (2006). Retrieved on November 27, 2006.
13. ^ List of countries by population: US: 301,350,000, Australia: 20,780,000

• "Background Note: Australia" U.S. Department of State. Aug. 2006. 11 Oct. 2006
• "Ancient Heritage, Modern Society" Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. May 2005. 11 Oct. 2006
• Dalton, John. Lecture. Bond University. Australian Culture From an International Perspective. Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland. Fall 2005.
• "Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement" Australian Government. 2005. 28 Oct. 2006
• "The Australian Continent" Australian Government. 2005. 28 Oct. 2006.
• Australia Foreign Relations Country Watch. 2006. 29 Oct. 2006.

• CIA World Factbook
• Embassy of Australia in Washington D.C.
• Embassy of the United States in Canberra
• Free Trade Agreement