AUSTRALIA PERSPECTIVE

ABC Australia reveals that David Brat, Trump's pick for US ambassador to Australia — a position vacant for 15 months — has publicly stated that NATO provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and urged Zelensky to accept Russian demands. Brat is a former Tea Party congressman, regular MAGA commentator on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, and Christian nationalist — a profile that 'will sit uneasily with the Albanese government,' notes ABC. Sydney Morning Herald covers Charles III's Washington visit with a similar angle: the cordial, ritualized meeting between Trump and Charles masks deep divergences on Iran, tariffs and NATO. For Canberra, these signals — a NATO-skeptic incoming ambassador, an Atlantic alliance debating the end of its annual summits — are warnings of instability in the collective security system Australia depends on.