Trump gives us a reminder of what voters care about

Anthony Albanese has made personal contact with Donald Trump to congratulate him on his win but must now face the reality of what a change in US administration really means for Australia. Smoothing the waters over previous character assessments of the re-elected president by the Prime Minister and our current ambassador to Washington, Kevin Rudd, will be the easy part.

The real challenge will come in convincing a rebooted Trump presidency that Australia is pulling its weight in defence and security spending, and to avoid becoming collateral damage in Mr Trump’s threatened trade war with China as part of his plans to reignite manufacturing in the US. Given the experience of Trump presidency 1.0 – and the results – nobody should underestimate Mr Trump’s resolve to follow through with rebuilding US manufacturing stocks or to use trade sanctions and tariffs as blunt instruments of foreign policy.

As The Times’ Richard Lloyd Parry wrote on Thursday, Mr Trump’s promise to impose 60 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports – and 20 per cent on those from other countries – will set off a trade war with Beijing and hurt the economies of Southeast Asia.

The question is whether the new US administration will expect its allies to take a similar approach to Chinese imports, something that would increase costs for Australian consumers, fuel inflation and test the reset the Albanese government has worked for with Beijing.

There are no signs that Mr Trump will pull the US out of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal but he is likely to be less interested in the Quad security grouping of the US, India, Japan and Australia.

Mr Trump’s inclination is towards bilateral arrangements rather than multilateral ones. This is most clear in his rejection of the UN climate process that has the Paris Agreement on reducing carbon dioxide emissions at its head. Mr Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement last time and could do so again.

This presents a challenge for the Albanese government, which has staked a lot of its political capital on a climate change response that is expensive, unwieldy and proving difficult to deliver.

Rather than Joe Biden’s subsidy-laden and misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, Mr Trump has pledged to slash public spending and focus instead on turbocharging oil and gas production. Under Mr Trump’s first presidency, the US became a net exporter of energy as part of a strategy to lessen its dependence on the Middle East in the wake of the two Gulf wars.

As things now stand Australia will be bidding to host a climate conference in co-operation with Pacific Islands states as US engagement on the issue is firmly in retreat. Our renewables-only policy is a lead weight for what limited manufacturing we have left and our energy future is imports of wind and solar hardware from China that Mr Trump may want to make more expensive.

Comments on Thursday by Mr Albanese’s climate tsar, Matt Kean, that Australia, which is responsible for only 1 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, should redouble its efforts to offset America’s lack of interest under Mr Trump defies common sense.

Whatever happens, Australia will continue to enjoy good relations and a strong strategic alliance with the US under Mr Trump.

But we must recognise the music has changed away from progressive interests of climate and woke identity politics and back to a focus on strength and the celebration of economic and technological exceptionalism. Mr Trump’s success has given us a lesson on what voters really care about most.