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Chalmers defends Australian defence spending as Trump administration says nation should spend more

Jim Chalmers has defended Australia's defence spending as having already gone up considerably", amid suggestions from the Donald Trump administration that Australia should spend more.

That is a very, very substantial pick-up in defend spending and one of the reasons we're doing that is to be able to work more effectively with our allies and partners like the United States ... We do pay our own way on defence. We are substantially increasing defence spending.

We have got a good relationship with the Americans, particularly that economic relationship which is of mutual benefit, and these are the sorts of things that we have been talking about with our American counterparts as they finalise some of the policies on things like tariffs.