Josh Frydenberg: Australia not echoing Trump on globalism

Frydenberg denies Australia echoes Trump’s view of globalism after the PM took aim at the UN.

Josh Frydenberg has declared Australia is not echoing Donald Trump’s view of globalism after Scott Morrison used a major foreign policy speech to warn his government’s international engagement will be “squarely driven by Australia’s national interests”.

The Prime Minister also paraphrased his mentor John Howard, saying as Australians “we will decide our interests and the circumstances in which we seek to pursue them”.

Opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles said he worried about these sorts of comments and labelled them “nationalistic talk”.

“There are a whole lot of challenges that face the world today which require global solutions, climate change being one of them,” Mr Marles told Nine’s Today show.

“The sort of almost nationalistic talk that we hear at the moment in the speech last night, but also that we heard from the US President a few weeks ago, I actually think is not the right tone at this moment in time.”

The US President denounced globalism in a recent address to the United Nations and talked up the importance of patriots.

But the Treasurer rejected the notion Mr Morrison was “echoing” Mr Trump.

“What we do is act on behalf of 25 million Australians and we do disagree with the Americans on a number of issues, not least of which is the big trade tensions they’ve got right now between China and the US,” Mr Frydenberg told ABC radio.

“The message is these (international) institutions are important, whether it’s a World Health Organisation, a World Trade Organisation, acting on behalf of refugees, these organisations play a vital role but it’s about getting the balance right and sometimes they don’t.

“The Prime Minister and indeed prime ministers before him have been very clear that we act in our own national interest. We don’t have the same national interests as the US.”

Mr Morrison also warned against “any reflex towards a negative globalism that coercively seeks to impose a mandate from an often ill-defined borderless global community”.

Asked what Mr Morrison meant by “negative globalism”, Mr Frydenberg said: “The point the Prime Minister was making was we want these global institutions to work for all countries and we see ourselves as the 12th, 13th largest economy in the world.

“As a good global citizen, being a founding member of the UN and pulling more than our weight in our region, for example in East Timor and the Solomons and other places, we want these global institutions not to berate countries but to work effectively with them.”

Mr Frydenberg said Australia would work with its key partners and not view the “China-US relationship as a binary choice for Australia”.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said Mr Morrison’s “attempt to imitate Donald Trump’s nationalist, backward looking approach to foreign policy” was contrary to Australia’s interests and would further entrench Australia as a “global pariah that refuses to take action on climate change”.

“Scott Morrison’s foreign policy vision is fundamentally contrary to Australia and the word’s interests. We need international institutions now more than ever as we confront global challenges that don’t adhere to national borders, climate change first and foremost among them,” Senator Di Natale said.

“When Scott Morrison attacks international institutions, he undermines the most important tools we have to confront global challenges like the climate crisis and the unprecedented movement of people fleeing conflict and violence.”