How Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton position themselves against the US president will influence voter perceptions ahead of the electionFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastTwo weeks of Trump and the pattern is clear. He is flooding the zone with a plethora of executive orders, dazing and distracting opponents at home and putting allies and partners abroad on edge.There is no longer a premium for being a close ally or partner of the US. Business is business. To paraphrase a John F Kennedy quote, ask not what America can do for you but what you can do for America.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news emailArthur Sinodinos is a former Australian ambassador to the US. He is the partner and chair of the Asia Group’s Australia practice and was a former minister for industry, innovation and science Continue reading…How Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton position themselves against the US president will influence voter perceptions ahead of the electionFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastTwo weeks of Trump and the pattern is clear. He is flooding the zone with a plethora of executive orders, dazing and distracting opponents at home and putting allies and partners abroad on edge.There is no longer a premium for being a close ally or partner of the US. Business is business. To paraphrase a John F Kennedy quote, ask not what America can do for you but what you can do for America.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news emailArthur Sinodinos is a former Australian ambassador to the US. He is the partner and chair of the Asia Group’s Australia practice and was a former minister for industry, innovation and science Continue reading…
Two weeks of Trump and the pattern is clear. He is flooding the zone with a plethora of executive orders, dazing and distracting opponents at home and putting allies and partners abroad on edge.
There is no longer a premium for being a close ally or partner of the US. Business is business. To paraphrase a John F Kennedy quote, ask not what America can do for you but what you can do for America.
How countries like Australia should react is also taking shape. Some are retaliating, others are taking it on the chin.
Understanding the values and interests that underpin Trump’s policies provides a guide to where he may go next.
The culture wars loom large in his worldview. Free speech as an absolute value will underpin American approaches to tech regulation at home and abroad.
If Trump and the tech bros target Australia’s tight media and tech regulations, the options are to buckle and look weak or make common cause with like-minded jurisdictions like the EU. Are we up for that (and the potential sanctions that may follow)?
The shadow of Trump will hang over our forthcoming election. How to deal with Trump may not be explicitly debated but it may influence voter perceptions of the parties and their leaders.
Trump is not overly popular in Australia, except for some on the right who support him uncritically. A poll after the Trump election showed support for the alliance dipping; more Australians wanted Kamala Harris to win the election. This should be no surprise. Australia’s compulsory and preferential voting system and independent election commission hews politics towards the centre.
Australians are also suspicious of importing foreign political brands.
Peter Dutton has claimed to be better placed to deal with Trump. What this means in practice is yet to be spelt out. It implies that ideological affinity may get Australia better (more lenient?) treatment in DC. But that is only one side of the coin. The other is who is best placed to make Australia more resilient and stronger in a world where our main ally no longer seeks to underwrite the global rules-based order?
The steel and aluminium tariffs announced this week have woken Australians up to the reality that keeping our heads down will not work. Even if a work-around is found, the levies on China and other general tariff increases in the offing will have flow-on consequences for Australia.
Strong, confident economies will be better placed to cope with the fallout of Trumpism and find creative ways to achieve mutual advantage with the new administration. The Trumpers respect strength and measured pushback. We can invert the deal-making mentality in DC to our advantage. This is more sensible than retaliation that brings costs and resolves nothing.
While Dutton may adopt some Trump-like policies, he will not go full Trump. Dutton is a mainstream conservative and institutionalist, who respects parliamentary and party structures. He wants to govern those structures rather than disrupt them.
Trump is a disrupter and agent of chaos, the tribune of the outsiders who want to drain the Washington swamp. He has little interest in the arcane processes of government and governs like he did at Trump Corporation. Nor does he have regard for traditional party structures. He has recast the Republican party in his image and attracted non-traditional Republican voters.
Like Trump, Dutton has been pushing a strong leader image. His nuclear stance and position on antisemitism play in to that. He has taken a populist economic turn with big business, pushing back against alleged price gouging and decrying the willingness of some corporates to take a stance on social issues rather than stick to their knitting to maximise shareholder value.
In an apparent nod to Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, Dutton has appointed a spokesperson on government efficiency. The proliferation of Welcome to Country ceremonies has been criticised and federal funding will be cut back. He has also attacked cultural diversity roles.
On the other side of the ledger, Dutton has vowed not to withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate or walk back the Coalition commitment to net zero by 2050. He is defying some strong backers who want to follow the full Trump playbook on climate. He shut down a nascent debate on the abortion laws. He championed the age restriction on access to social media and supported the news bargaining code. Both are policies that the tech bros in the US would have issues with.
Dutton’s job is to make the government the issue: are you better off than three years ago? Albanese’s job is to leverage the risk of Dutton PM in a way that is salient to Australians’ daily lives. Portraying Dutton as a recipe for Trumpian chaos only works if Dutton obliges and goes full Trump.
The risk of this strategy for Albanese, should he win the election, is that he will face a president who may not be amused to have been dragged into the Australian campaign (and ended up on the losing team).
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Arthur Sinodinos is a former Australian ambassador to the US. He is the partner and chair of the Asia Group’s Australia practice and was a former minister for industry, innovation and science