James Curran on Trump, Ukraine, shifting tectonic plates, and a bigger Australian defence bill

Politics with Michelle Grattan: James Curran on Trump, Ukraine, shifting tectonic plates, and a bigger Australian defence bill

The Trump presidency is turning much of the world order on its head. Tne United States president is arm-twisting Ukraine, playing nice with Russia, and using protection as an economic and political weapon.

The Australian government is pessimistic about escaping American tariffs on aluminium and steel when a decision is announced next week. Meanwhile, the message from the US is clear: we need to boost defence spending.

To discuss Trump Mark 2 on the world stage and what that means for Australia, we’re joined by James Curran, professor of modern history at the University of Sydney.

Curran says,

One gets the sense that we are looking at the kind of tectonic plates of world politics shifting before our very eyes.

Trump is about might is right. He does have an expansionary view of American power in the western hemisphere if we are to judge him by his statements on the Panama Canal and Greenland. But I think more broadly, his interpretation of American power is to simply “get out of America’s way”.

In terms of economic implications, [it’s] a confirmation that we are looking at the permanence of protectionism in the United States. This administration, along with the Biden administration and the first Trump administration, have been putting a wrecking ball through the multilateral trading system and the WTO. And that is certainly a not a good thing for free trade and for countries like Australia.

Curran explains what America’s expectation that countries need to spend more on defence would mean for Australia,

This has been the great concern, if you like, over a number of years – that Australia has got defence on the cheap, that it’s put so much of its national wealth into the middle class and welfare and infrastructure and developing the nation that it’s been able to rely on the American blanket of protection while it pursues its prosperity.

So if [defence spending] is to rise to 3% [of GDP], then that’s going to mean, firstly, a concentration on what are the lower cost alternatives to defend this continent? And secondly, where will the trade offs come? What will be sacrificed from the national budget? And what political leader in this country will front the Australian people and squarely and honestly and earnestly have a conversation about these dramatic strategic circumstances and why greater sacrifice is required from Australians to enable a higher defence expenditure.

Is the Trump world the new normal, or will this be over when Trump eventually leaves the White House?

I’m a little bit sceptical about this idea that we grit our teeth and close our eyes and hope that the nightmare is over in four years time. There is a really big question mark over how America can snap back in terms of its institutional robustness. The pressure that the courts, the media and the Congress are under. Does this all just snap back in four years time? Do we really think that either a Republican or a Democrat successor to Trump will ride into Washington, down Pennsylvania Avenue in a glittering chariot of liberal internationalism? To say everyone shouldn’t worry because the liberal international order is back and it’s gleaming and it’s working.

I really think this is up to America’s allies, both in Europe and in East Asia, to continue to protect as many of those rules and those institutions that have worked so well for so many of us, as much as they possibly can.