Now that Donald Trump is the inevitable Republican candidate for the US presidency, countries everywhere need to prepare. Can Australia Trump-proof itself somehow?
Some of Australia’s most senior officials have turned to Mike Green for his advice in recent weeks. Green is an American politico-policy expert who relocated to Australia a couple of years ago to run the US Studies Centre at Sydney University.
Donald Trump’s notorious phone call with Malcolm Turnbull was a setback for the Australia-US relationship.Credit: AP
The bad news about a second Trump presidency: “It’d be terrible,” he tells me. The good news: “It wouldn’t be as terrible as people think.”
Green is one of a particular Washington type; hyperconnected, hypersmart, hyperactive, hypertalkative. He’s also a character. He speaks Japanese, he’s worked for a Japanese politician and has a black belt in the Japanese sword martial art of iaido. But before you pigeonhole him, he’s also an expert on the bagpipes.
He worked in the White House leading Asia policy for George W. Bush, but he would never work in a Trump White House.
He was one of 50 “never Trumpers” – national security officials, all of whom had worked for Republican presidents – who published a full-page letter in the New York Times to warn voters that Trump would be “the most reckless president in American history”. They got that right.
CEO of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Dr Michael Green, is a “never-Trumper”. Credit: AFR
So what advice has Green given Canberra? First thing, he says, “is what not to do – do not panic like the Europeans. They have more reason to worry than Australia or Japan.” Because Trumpworld, as he calls it, and the America First ideology are rooted in an anti-European history going back to the 19th century.
“Europe represents everything they hate – open immigration, progressive social policy like gay marriage and abortion, the growth of the bureaucracy and the weakening of the state.”
This helps explain Trump’s taunting of America’s European allies in NATO. By contrast, “a Trump administration would be full of people who are Asia-firsters. I don’t agree with them, but they are all talking about pulling out of Ukraine to shift resources to Asia.” Not necessarily because they love Asia but because they want to confront China. “So Canberra shouldn’t panic, they have something to work with there.”
Second, what of Trump’s stated intention to persecute his enemies if he should win office? Green predicts “ugly fights” as Trump pursues the Department Of Justice. But he might also go after the US intelligence community, says Green. This would worry Australian governments of any stripe.
However, “the courts and Congress will block Trump from dismantling parts of the government that the government needs to protect the country”, predicts Green.
Third, on specific policy areas, Green expects there’d be some damage: “I think the climate compact would be in big trouble.” The compact is the overarching Australia-US framework for cooperation on renewables, signed in May last year.
“There would be no movement on the transition to renewables – he hates anything to do with EVs, batteries, he’d definitely gut those parts of it.” But Green would expect the joint US-Australia agenda on critical minerals to survive a transition to Trump “because of the defence connection, and it could have upside for alliances like the Quad”, comprising Australia, Japan, India and the US.
What about Trump’s plan to impose new across-the-board tariffs of 10 per cent on all imports from all countries, and 40 per cent on products from China? “It sounds cool and tough to say ‘tariff man’,” one of Trump’s self-awarded titles, “but he will be absolutely devastated if he acts” on his stated policy.
Why? “Because if Australia, Canada, the EU threaten retaliation, it could really hurt Trump in agriculture-supporting states and districts. He’d have a political gun at his head,” says Green.
He points out that Trump modified earlier trade promises that threatened to backfire, for instance renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) rather than his promise to cancel it.
There’s also the fact that Trump exempted Australia from some punitive trade plans last time around because Australia – almost uniquely in the world – runs a trade deficit with the US. Trump thinks of trade as a zero-sum, country-by-country, accounting exercise. If the US has a surplus, it’s winning, in his mind. And, in its trade with Australia, it is “winning”.
There might even be some potential trade gains for Australia under Trump, Green speculates. An agreement on digital trade, for example.
Illustration: Andrew Dyson
On AUKUS, Green thinks Australia frets too much. The fact that Australia is investing in US subs-building capacity is a big plus, he says. And Green expects that the Republicans would be likely to step up funding for the US submarine program, meaning that any subs sold to – or made with – Australia need not detract from America’s production for its own fleet needs.
This brings Green to his two big worries. And they’re whoppers. One is the effect that a Trump 2.0 could have on American democracy: “It won’t collapse, but it could corrode.”
The other is how Trump would act in a major security crisis in the Indo-Pacific. “What worries me most is that there’s a Taiwan crisis and Trump says, ‘I won’t defend Taiwan’, or there’s a Korea crisis and Trump says ‘I won’t defend South Korea, I’ll meet Kim Jong-un.’”
Even if the US ultimately were to defend Taiwan or South Korea, any initial hesitation would embolden adversaries and make any war bigger, harder and more deadly.
How might Australia try to influence a Trump White House to get the outcomes it seeks? Green warns that it will be “harder for a Labor government” than it was under Coalition prime ministers because there is less ideological common interest. Trump, he points out, loves to create fights with centre-left leaders: “A Labor government has to be really disciplined”.
Australia, counsels Green, should work with like-minded allies such as Japan because “Japan is in good standing with conservative Asia-firsters – Australia shouldn’t be so proud to think that it has to go it alone” in seeking to influence Trump policy.
So how terrible? Terrible enough, it seems.
Peter Hartcher is the international editor.
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