A Donald Trump 2.0 term ‘better for Australia than Joe Biden’: historian Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson speaks in Austin this month. He says Donald Trump Mr Trump is ‘a bad person with no character or commitment to constitutional order‘ but the US constitution would stop him from ‘overthrowing the republic’. Picture: University of Austin in Texas

Former Harvard professor Niall Ferguson says a second Trump administration would be better for Australia than a re-elected President Joe Biden, who he says can’t be trusted not to “screw up” the global world order further.

The British-American historian, who also doubted the US would follow through on any promise to defend Taiwan, said although Mr Trump was “a bad person with no character or commitment to constitutional order”, the US constitution would stop him from “overthrowing the republic”.

“But there’s no constitution to stop Joe Biden ruining the global order … If you give Biden another four years, God knows what will be left of the Pax Americana, and you as an Australian should care about that, because if they screw it up, then China’s dominant,” he told the Australian in Austin, Texas.

Professor Ferguson, 59, said the Biden administration had “nine more months for one mother of all screw-ups, and it will probably be over Taiwan”, adding that he was surprised Chinese President Xi Jinping didn’t order a blockade of the island in the wake of Taiwan’s recent presidential election.

“If I’d been advising Xi Jinping, I would have said ‘Boss, this is your best moment, you’re never going to have an America this weak’.”

His comments came amid a furore over Mr Trump’s revelation at a campaign rally on Saturday (Sunday AEDT) that he told NATO members as president that the US wouldn’t come to their aid if they didn’t sufficiently increase their military expenditures, saying he’d advise Russia to “do whatever the hell they want”.

A Hoover Institution senior fellow, Professor Ferguson was in the Texan capital to welcome the first batch of students to the University of Austin, a new private university he has championed as dedicated to free speech as an alternative to the radicalism of US ivy league universities.

“The Democrats have brilliantly orchestrated not only Trump’s nomination but also his likely re-election; the only thing that can stop that is a criminal conviction,” he said, referring to the 91 criminal charges the former president is facing.

He also took aim at Britain’s contribution to the AUKUS alliance with Australia and the US as “trivial”, criticising its “tiny” military and likely inability to help the US and Australia in the event of a clash with China over Taiwan, which Beijing has vowed to bring back under mainland control.

He expressed bemusement at the UK’s role in the three-way AUKUS security pact that should see Australia acquire US-built nuclear-powered submarines from the 2030s, suggesting London’s role was “actually fraudulent” given its stretched resources.

“Our part in AUKUS is a trivial thing; I think the problem with the UK is if we are ever called on to play a part in Taiwan, we will be exposed as having no real capability,” he said.

Taiwan’s critical place in the global supply chain as the pre-eminent centre of advanced semiconductor manufacturing would give the US pause before following through on any promise to defend the island, he said.

“It would be like the Cuban missile crisis in reverse with the US in the role of Khruschev … except if Cuba were vaporised, only cigar supply would be affected.

“The US would send the naval expeditionary force, and about halfway they’d have to change their mind, with Nvidia, Apple down 50 per cent, maybe 80 per cent, they just couldn’t do it – I think they would fold,” he added, referring to prominent US companies heavily dependent on Taiwan’s advanced chip production.

A strong supporter of Israel in its war against Hamas, Professor Ferguson was optimistic about the Middle Eastern democracy’s long-term future. “I think Israel is probably going to come out of this process a lot more united than when it went into it, with a recognition that the orthodox can’t opt out of the defence of the country.”

He also slammed Vladimir Putin’s recent interview with TV commentator Tucker Carlson as “garbage”, dismissing the Russian President’s lengthy history monologue about Ukraine’s evolution as “totally ­irrelevant”.