Why David Brat, the new US ambassador to Australia, has a big in-tray

After an almost two-year vacancy – and some reported “grumblings” about Australia’s tight pet quarantine rules – there’s now a new face heading up the US presence down under. Former Republican congressman David Brat touched down last Friday to take up the post of US ambassador to Australia.

Australia is typically seen as a desirable posting for American diplomats, with its longstanding US treaty ties, common language and enviable weather (Canberra notwithstanding).

But Brat will have his work cut out for him in the months ahead.

He’s already had to hit the ground running. On Tuesday, the US embassy expressed “serious concerns” about Australia’s proposed Digital Duty of Care, suggesting the laws could amount to “extraterritorial censorship of protected speech”.

And today’s revelations about the OpenAI hack of multiple Australian government websites may have added a new diplomatic headache. The Greens are explicitly calling on the government to summon the US ambassador to explain what happened.

More broadly, Brat’s arrival in Canberra comes in the wake of a highly consequential period in the Australia-US relationship. There’s daylight between Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Donald Trump on tariffs and Iran, as well as rising uncertainty among the Australian public about US security guarantees.

So, who is David Brat? And what are the top priorities in the briefing memo sitting on his desk?

A longstanding Trump ally

The once-obscure economics professor burst onto the national political scene in 2014 when he toppled Eric Cantor in the Republican primary race for Virginia’s 7th Congressional district. The New York Times branded it “one of the most stunning upsets in modern political history”.

To this day, Brat remains the only primary challenger in US history to unseat a sitting House majority leader since the position was formally established over a century ago.

After a narrow election loss in 2018, Brat took up a senior role in business at Liberty University in Virginia – ranked the most conservative US university – until his nomination as ambassador in 2026.

Unlike many Republican lawmakers, Brat has supported Trump from the beginning – since his first presidential run in 2016. And despite maintaining a relatively low public profile, he appears to have stayed in Trump’s good graces and remained a steady champion of the president’s agenda, particularly on economic policy.

In Trump’s first administration, Brat defended the president’s tariffs. He said in 2018 the strategy was “like chess”:

You’re doing geopolitics and the first move on the board is a tariff.

He struck a similar note last year, framing Trump’s second-term tariff agenda as a tool to balance trade relations and support US manufacturing.

From his stint in Congress, there are also indications Brat is comfortable working across the aisle. Despite riding the hardline Tea Party wave, he has expressed collegiality with his political opponents in the past, even praising counterparts like independent Senator Bernie Sanders as a “great guy”.

What are the biggest issues in his in-tray?

During his May 2026 Senate confirmation hearing, Brat lauded Australia as a US ally, saying “few countries are as integral to US interests as Australia”.

Brat also spelled out the three top priorities for his to-do list as ambassador:

• critical minerals and commercial diplomacy
• defence cooperation
• partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region.

In particular, he pledged to “fully execute” the critical minerals agreement signed by Trump and Albanese in October 2025.

Brat also championed partnering with superannuation funds to grow Australian investment in the US. And he said he would work with Congress to streamline defence trade controls to move “full steam ahead” on AUKUS and drive collaboration on critical infrastructure, private sector investment and security assistance in the Pacific.

Brat has also made a point of commending Australia’s strengths and commitments in each of these areas. He praised Australia’s investments in the US industrial base and argued it was incumbent on the US to “step up and show that we’re all in” on AUKUS.

Splintering trust in America

However, an ambassador doesn’t just work behind the scenes to shepherd priorities through the thorny US policy-making ecosystem. They also serve a critical public-facing function.

Brat’s arrival comes at a moment when the social foundations of the alliance sit on shaky ground. Seventy-five years since the signing of the ANZUS treaty, Australian trust in the US has dropped to historic lows.

Our polling at the United States Studies Centre finds that while Australians don’t want to withdraw from their alliance with the US, the public is far less confident in its security guarantees and benefits compared to just a few years ago.

Only 16% of Australians think the second Trump administration has been good for Australia. They are more likely to say the US is harmful rather than helpful in the region. And less than a third think the Australian government has properly explained why Australia even needs an alliance with the US at all.

Of course, these trends run deeper than any single ambassadorial term. But outreach may prove to be a critical priority of Brat’s tenure — starting with the quiet work of listening to and engaging directly with the communities most sceptical of the alliance, notably women and young people.

Read more:
After 250 years of American independence, what do Australians think about the US?

A long wait, but now the real work begins

Despite much speculation, it’s not entirely abnormal for the ambassadorship to sit empty for two years after a change in US administration. Australia waited about 18 months for Caroline Kennedy’s arrival during the Biden administration, too.

The biggest task facing Brat may not be whether he can deliver on his promise to move “full steam ahead” on key economic and defence deals, but if both governments can ultimately succeed in bringing the public along for the ride.

With the wait for an ambassador over, the real work begins.

Ava Kalinauskas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.