Trump’s won a mandate to do what he likes

New Domino’s boss Mark Van Dyck. Illustration: Sturt Krygsman

The reality now sinking in is Donald Trump is no longer the outlier. He is the norm for the majority of Americans and comes into his second term with an extraordinary mandate to take the country in his chosen direction.

If his first term was ignored as a fluke this one was not and he owes no one anything – so has unfettered freedom.

Just what the specifics of that means remains to be seen, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should see an eerie similarity between Trump’s simple cost of living and anti-migration campaign, and that being sold by federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

The message is that even if the macro numbers are OK, incumbents are held responsible if people are frustrated and can’t see the path forward.

The US is polarised but now no one can question the legitimacy of the convicted criminal with a demonstrated contempt for democracy, who’s about to take the oath for the highest office in the land for the second time.

Just what it means for two specific policies covered regularly by this column – competition law and climate – remain to be seen and are full of conceptual conflicts.

Trump’s deputy, JD Vance, is an avowed supporter of outgoing Federal Trade Commission chief Lina Khan because of her campaign against digital platforms.

Apple, Google et al have few friends in the Republican Party and for Trump there’s none more off-side than Mark Zuckerberg at Meta.

Yet neither Trump supporter Elon Musk nor Trump himself is keen on any regulation, and for the AI sector this means the unwinding of regulations including those governing data centres.

Australian companies like BlueScope have US operations which helps and in the past have helped it skirt punitive tariffs. But now its Australian exports are being investigated by the Commerce Department for allegedly unfair exports to the US.

Trumps own words of “drill baby, drill” in his acceptance speech tells you what he thinks about environmental regulations and winding back fossil fuels to help the climate.

The US can chart its own course but Australia needs multilateral structures and support – and until Joe Biden’s massive environmental push – would not see America as a lead player.

The question is what happens to international treaties if the US withdraws.

On this issue Australia needs to stand on its own two feet and provide the leadership with help from other like-minded nations.

Trump doesn’t like subsidies for foreign electric vehicles, which suits Musk’s Tesla just fine.

Tariff hikes will ultimately doom the US but Australia can ill afford an international trade war, and having patched up dialogue with China it would be hit hard by any massive US-China fight.

Trump’s campaign was the start of his push as a transactional president and it is too early yet to know just what his final policies will be.

Ports on go-slow as union talks drag

While all eyes are on the US, Australian traders are increasingly frustrated at the long delays at Australian ports, as Qube dawdles through negotiations with the Maritime Union of Australia on new enterprise agreements.

The MUA attempted to start talks on new enterprise agreements in October last year; Qube came to the table in April this year and, with the 19 enterprise agreements now expired, industrial action has started causing real problems for shippers.

Brisbane is the main concern now with slow work orders meaning that after waiting up to 10 days to get dockside, the usual discharge of 4000 tonnes of steel a day a day is more like 1500.

The more delays the worse congestion becomes which means increased costs and late delivery.

The union is trying to introduce some order into the docks which now operate on overly flexible schedules. In some cases they are not known until 4pm the day before shifts are due; and there are up to 21 different starts times and anywhere between four and 12 hour shifts.

There is also a big pay differential between ports across the country.

While Qube and the MUA sort out their grievances, the steel industry is facing long delays in shipments and producers like Alco are running out of storage space.

Domino’s boss has the right credentials

On paper Mark Van Dyck is the ideal person to replace Don Meij after his 22-year reign as chief at Domino’s Pizza.

Van Dyck comes to the counter with close to 10 years at the world’s seventh biggest food company, Compass, including seven running its Asian operations which span 11 countries, 70,000 staff and serve 400 million meals a year.

Given Japan is one of Domino’s problem spots, his Asian experience will be a boon – as will his decade at Coca-Cola – because Dominos is essentially a franchisor selling franchises which sell pizzas.

Van Dyck comes with turnaround experience, clear ideas on the need for leadership, backing people and giving them ambitious growth targets but this was done as a divisional leader albeit ones bigger than most Australian companies.

What he lacks is public company leadership where he is the boss and ultimately responsible to a wide range of stakeholders, starting with his chair and coming after a legendary leader.

Meij walked after a once stellar reign, on a down point, with weak sales – and chair Jack Cowin also belatedly realised it had become the “Don show” not Domino’s.

One of Van Dyck’s first calls was to Meij’s sister, Keri Hayman, imploring her to stay in charge of the Australian operations.

Competition is a matter of opinion

One of the unsuccessful opponents of the Sigma-Chemist Warehouse merger was Terry White franchise owner EBOS, which just happened to have also been unsuccessful when it tried to merge with CW last year.

It once wanted the keys, so it was almost a bit rich complaining of competition concerns to the ACCC, as was the Pharmacy Guild.

Sigma at the time was just about to win back the CW business and now, with ACCC approval in the bag, the backdoor listing is on and the rest is history.

Next week’s Monash University conference celebrating 50 years of competition law is well timed given the Trump election, which on paper will see US Federal Trade Commission boss Lina Khan and Justice Department antitrust boss Jonathan Kantor depart.

The Monash conference includes ACCC chief Gina Cass-Gottlieb, Justice Michael O’Bryan and US-based Georgetown law school’s Bill Kovacic.

Trump promotes deregulation but his deputy JD Vance has praised Khan’s crackdown on the big digital platforms.

Just where Trump’s mate, Elon Musk, sits is another matter and suffice to say it is one more uncertainty ahead in the Trump presidency, but on paper it can be assumed the US will vacate its antitrust leadership leaving the mantle firmly in the EC hands.

Australia’s opposition treasury spokesman, Angus Taylor, this week signalled the government’s merger reforms would be waved through – which boosts ACCC powers including the introduction of compulsory merger notification.

Business concerns continue over the ability to impose market share thresholds by regulation on top of existing catch-all monetary triggers.

The opposition this week tabled a nonsensical amendment bill to give courts the power to force divestitures in supermarkets and hardware when that would allow “a substantial improvement in the economy”.

Divestitures are almost impossible to administer and just how “substantial improvement” is defined is moot.

Suffice to say it won’t get government support but the Greens may well support the loony tunes policy.

Australian AI policy is in a state of permanent consultation with an apparent aim of cherry picking offshore rules and now the US looks set to vacate the space that leaves everything either in Europe’s direction or nowhere to be seen.