Australians turn on ‘unreliable, erratic’ Trump as Iran war drags on

Donald Trump’s popularity in Australia has plunged to its lowest level of his second term as US president due to the war in Iran as most Australians remain unconvinced the nation’s military should play a role in helping to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor survey, conducted for this masthead, also found that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recent national television address on the fuel crisis triggered by the war was widely watched but failed to reassure the public that the government had the problem under control.

As world leaders prepare to meet again this week to discuss a multinational force to safeguard the Strait of Hormuz when the war ends, 42 per cent of respondents said they support the idea of Australian troops participating in such a mission.

Thirty-one per cent of respondents said they opposed Australia joining a peacekeeping force while 27 per cent were unsure whether Australia should participate.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Sunday that Australia would “obviously” join a multinational effort being led by France and the United Kingdom to safeguard the strait when the war ended, but said it was too early say how it would contribute.

“The Strait of Hormuz matters to Australia. It matters that it’s open, and it matters that we see the global fuel supply chain return to normal,” Marles told the ABC’s Insiders.

Further details of the mission are expected to be announced this week following a military planning conference in London that Australia is set to attend.

US officials are on Monday flying to Islamabad for further talks with Iran just 24 hours after Iran once again closed the Strait of Hormuz, signalling to Tehran that the strategic waterway remains an exceptional bargaining asset. The strait remains closed and the two-week ceasefire expires on Wednesday.

Australians were less ambivalent about Trump, whose favorability ratings have fallen to their lowest level since he returned to the White House in early 2025.

Sixty-two per cent of Australians view Trump negatively, while fewer than one in five view him positively, giving him a net favorability rating of -44 per cent.

This was down from an already record low net favorability rating of -41 in February, before the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran.

Most respondents – 52 per cent – said they did not like Trump or believe he was effective, up significantly from the last time this question was asked in November.

The proportion of respondents who said they did not like Trump but believed he was effective fell from 29 to 22 per cent, possibly reflecting the view that he has not handled the war against Iran well.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Monday she had long believed the US would be “a very different America” under Trump’s leadership.

Wong told Sky News that “one of the things that President Trump himself has said is one of his characteristics and one of his tactics is unpredictability”.

“And we’ve certainly seen unpredictability. But ultimately, we continue to work with the Americans and engage with them very closely, particularly military to military, but also diplomatically,” she said.

Pollster Jim Reed said Australians’ already low opinion of Trump had plunged even further over the course of the war, during which he had lashed out at Australia and other allies by accusing them of failing to help the US-Israeli war effort.

Reed said Resolve’s focus groups found Trump was viewed as “incompetent, ineffective, unreliable, erratic, self-serving, disloyal and insulting”.

Overall, 61 per cent of respondents overall said they believed Trump’s return to office was bad for Australia, up from 53 per cent when the question was last asked in July.

Greens voters are most hostile to Trump, followed by Labor voters, Coalition voters and One Nation voters respectively.

Even though One Nation voters tend to view the US president more favourably than other Australians, most (53 per cent) still say his election victory was a bad outcome for Australia.

The survey, based on a sample of 1807 respondents, was conducted last week.

A striking 49 per cent of respondents said they watched Albanese’s April 1 national address on the fuel crisis, suggesting a massive audience level usually reserved for major sporting events. But most who watched appeared to leave unimpressed.

Sixty-three per cent of respondents who watched the address said they did not feel assured by Albanese’s message, while 34 per cent said they felt assured.