The first and last US president to set foot on Northern Territory soil, Barack Obama, spoke of the bond between the two allies during his visit to Darwin's Royal Australian Air Force Base in 2011. A decade on, as Obama's former vice-president Joe Biden takes the reins for his own era in the top job, some defence industry experts, businesses and politicians are hoping he too will continue to develop the US's ongoing role in Australia's north. "The reason for a US military presence in the Northern Territory is still relevant today, if not more so," said Brendan Thomas-Noone, a foreign policy and defence expert at the United States Studies Centre. The article was published by ABC News.