Former Australia Foreign Minister: Trump is the most ill-informed president in US history

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Former foreign minister Gareth Evans has launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump, urging Australia to reduce its dependence on the US alliance and accept China as a legitimate "global rule maker".

Mr Evans labelled Mr Trump as "manifestly the most ill-informed, under-prepared, ethically challenged and psychologically ill-equipped president in US history".

The former senior member of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments also called on the government to put "more bucks" into defence spending, potentially including nuclear-powered submarines, to be more self-reliant.

"Less United States does not mean walking away from the alliance, from which we, of course, profoundly benefit in terms of access to intelligence and high-end armaments," Mr Evans, now Australian National University chancellor, said in the speech to the National Press Club on Thursday.

"But less reflexive support for everything the US chooses to do is long overdue."

Mr Evans said Australia's support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the immediate backing of last week's American missile strikes against Syria were examples where Australia had been too quick to back the US.

"My own experience strongly suggests that periodically saying 'no' to the US when our national interests are manifestly different makes for a much healthier and [more] productive relationship, [rather] than one of craven dependence," Mr Evans said.

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