This week Donald Trump secured his position as frontrunner for the Republican nomination for US president with a thumping victory in the primary in his home state, New York.

But in a striking new Lowy Institute poll result, almost half (45 per cent) of adult Australians say Australia should “distance itself from the United States if it elects a president like Donald Trump”.

Faced with the prospect of a Trump presidency, only a bare majority (51 per cent) of Australians say “we should remain close to the United States regardless of who is elected US president”.

This will come as a nasty surprise to Washington.

In his recent celebrated reporting for The Atlantic on Barack Obama’s approach to foreign policy, Jeffrey Goldberg quoted an administration official on the subject of alliances.

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