Nothing good, from the FT:
Donald Trump suggested on Sunday that the US could pull out of the World Trade Organisation and said that the EU had been created largely to compete against the US in international trade.
In an interview with NBC, the Republican presidential candidate said that the US might withdraw from the WTO if his plans to use tariffs to bring factories back from Mexico were challenged.
Mr Trump also repeated his controversial suggestion that the US might not fulfil its commitments to defend Nato allies under attack if they did not do more to boost defence spending.
Mr Trump has made trade a central part of his populist economic message and has in the past threatened to pull out of Nafta and levy tariffs on Chinese goods. His comments on WTO appeared to take his anti-free trade rhetoric up a further notch.
Speaking on “Meet the Press”, Mr Trump said he would consider imposing a tax of 15-35 per cent on US companies that had moved manufacturing to Mexico. Asked if such a policy would not contravene WTO rules, he replied:
“It doesn’t matter. Then we’re going to renegotiate or we’re going to pull out. These trade deals are a disaster, the World Trade Organisation is a disaster.”
Last week Mr Trump suggested the US might not intervene to help some Nato allies if they were attacked by Russia, comments that were denounced by some senior Republicans and by European leaders. Although his campaign suggested at the time that the statement had been taken out of context, Mr Trump repeated the argument on Sunday.
“Now, a country gets invaded, they haven’t paid, everyone says, “Oh, but we have a treaty”. Well, they have a treaty too. They’re supposed to be paying. We have countries within Nato that are taking advantage of us,” he said.
So, what does this mean for the Australian strategic outlook? If The Donald has no interest in helping Europe against Russia, why on earth would he have any interest in helping Australia against, say, China? After all, we’re busy building the Chinese military with out dirt. We’re busy shipping China our energy virtually for free while hollowing out our own defensive capability. We’re busy fattening their state-owned enterprises with our fixed assets. We busy selling our own homes to their elite.
In short, the Australian aylite is very busy selling out ANZUS under the McKibbin Doctrine so why would a Trump Administration give two hoots about protecting Australia?
And he’s gaining:
Maybe, just maybe, we should be thinking about preserving a little of our own productive economy.
