Most people throughout the world (except dedicated right wing American Republicans) are contemplating with horror the very real possibility of Donald Trump being re-elected as American President next week. I share that horror, but not to the rather extreme extent being asserted by many.
First, I don’t think that Australia has anything to fear in terms of Trump punishing us with tariffs or other trade barriers. After all, the United States has a trade surplus with Australia. Trump won’t jeopardise that advantage.
Secondly, I don’t think Trump will make any moves to undermine the AUKUS alliance. Republicans support AUKUS just as much as the Democrats, and Trump himself has said nothing to suggest that he disagrees with the overall Republican position. Moreover, Trump is well aware of the advantages Australia provides to the US in defence facilities, not least the Pine Gap spy base near Alice Springs. No doubt quite a few left-leaning Labor and Greens supporters won’t be at all happy about that, at least as to its nuclear submarine aspects. Trump is most unlikely to torpedo the nuclear submarine deal (deliberate pun).
Trump appears almost certain to increase US inflation with his promises of taxation cuts and large increases in spending. However, Kamala Harris is just as bad in that respect.
Nor is Trump likely to prove a major threat to defence ties with any other Western allies, with the noteworthy exception of Ukraine where he will almost certainly cut foreign aid funding from the very generous levels provided by President Biden. Trump’s previously expressed attitudes also suggest that he may well reduce US funding to NATO, and he will be considerably more chummy towards Russia’s President Putin that has been the case under Biden. However, with these fairly notable exceptions America’s position on both defence and foreign affairs is likely to be very similar to that of the Biden administration.
However, one area of significant difference from the Biden administration is that of immigration. Trump is undoubtedly serious in his plans to deport millions of undocumented Central and South American immigrants, and he will almost certainly recommence the construction of his much-derided border wall.
The real problem posed for the world by a Trump victory next week is in the area of climate change/global heating. Trump is very close to American fossil fuel interests, and will certainly give them a lot of assistance while simultaneously hindering the further development of renewable energy. As the UK’s Guardian newspaper says:
The climate crisis may appear peripheral in the US presidential election but a victory for Donald Trump will, more than any other issue, have profound consequences for people around a rapidly heating world, experts have warned.
During his push for the White House, Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and “one of the great scams of all time” while vowing to delete spending on clean energy, abolish “insane” incentives for Americans to drive electric cars, scrap various environmental rules and unleash a “drill, baby, drill” wave of new oil and gas.
Such an agenda would be carried out over a four year-period that nearly rounds out a crucial decade in which scientists say the US, and the world, must slash planet-heating pollution in half to avoid disastrous climate breakdown.
However, we shouldn’t get too carried away. Trump will be US President for only four years, and there is a limit to the damage he will be able to do in that time. Moreover, a lot of the new renewable energy developments in America are already locked in, and any future US administration will certainly take global heating much more seriously than Trump does.
The bottom line is that, although I would certainly prefer a Democrat victory, a Trump victory would not be a major disaster.