Donald Trump’s tariff war is creating economic chaos—and political trouble for Anthony Albanese as he heads to the federal election.
Albanese’s effort to get an exemption for Australian aluminium and steel failed.
The impact of these initial tariffs will be modest. But Trump is also threatening to target beef exports and Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which US big pharma says reduces their profits.
Albanese’s efforts to appease Trump failed. He has refused to call out Trump’s genocidal plan for ethnic cleansing in Gaza or any of his outrages against migrants and trans people.
Instead he went ahead and handed over $800 million as a down payment on nuclear submarines from the US, and offered Trump a deal on control of Australia’s rare earth metals.
The US under Trump is a danger to the world, lashing out in all directions—bombing Yemen and giving Israel a green light for more death and destruction in Gaza and the West Bank.
But the Trump administration sees China as its biggest threat—promising growing tensions and even war. Australia’s alliance with the US means it is dangerously exposed.
Albanese should tear up the AUKUS nuclear submarines deal, close the US spy base at Pine Gap and end the growing US military presence at bases across Australia.
European leaders are giving Trump what he wants through agreeing to massive hikes in military spending. One of Trump’s picks for the Defence Department, Elbridge Colby, has also called for Australia to boost spending to 3 per cent of GDP.
This would mean a 50 per cent increase, almost $30 billion a year, at the expense of funding for health, education and other services.
Albanese’s response was to say he was already “allocating significant additional resources for defence”. Defence Minister Richard Marles said he could “understand” the US point of view.
Albanese’s failure to stand up to Trump is also opening the door to Peter Dutton.
The Liberal leader has backed the call for more military spending, pledging to pour billions more into buying F-35 fighter jets.
Dutton’s call to end working from home for public sector workers, insultingly announced just before International Women’s Day, was another echo of Trump. It comes on top of plans to sack 36,000 public sector workers.
Albanese’s support for Israel and efforts to smear the Palestine movement as antisemitic have also legitimised Dutton’s even more strident attacks.
The admission by police that the Dural caravan, hyped as a “potential mass casualty event”, was actually a “criminal con job” has exposed the opportunism of both major parties.
NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns branded it “terrorism” and used it to push new hate speech and anti-protest laws through parliament.
As a result, federal Labor’s attempt to say that Dutton went too far has little credibility.
All of them were happy to hype up the threat and spread fear in the community, showing Albanese’s claims to want to “lower the temperature” to protect “social cohesion” were hypocrisy.
Police now say all the major antisemitic attacks in Sydney since late last year were orchestrated by organised crime and were not ideologically motivated.
But don’t expect Albanese or NSW Labor to apologise for blaming the protests for Palestine.
Election
Albanese has put back the election until May, meaning Labor must deliver a budget on 25 March.
Labor has announced an $8.5 billion plan to boost the rate of bulk billed GP visits to 90 per cent.
It has also finalised a 5 per cent boost to school funding in NSW, with deals now in place in every state except Queensland to deliver the resourcing standard recommended by Gonski almost 15 years ago.
But the full amount won’t arrive until 2034, more than another two elections away.
It is also turning its fire on Dutton—not over his policies but targeting his purchase of bank shares during the 2009 financial crisis and his profit of $6.8 million on a string of investment properties.
But anger at the cost of living and Labor’s refusal to act on the housing crisis and climate change, as well as its support for Israel, will see it lose seats at the election.
Labor’s failures have boosted Dutton’s chances. Many people hope that more Greens or independent MPs can deliver change through a minority government. But crossbench MPs won’t be able to force Labor to take the action needed—they can only block measures in parliament. If Labor and the Coalition unite, as they did over deportation laws in December, the crossbench is powerless.
The Greens’ control of the balance of power in Senate has not pushed Labor to the left.
We need to build a union fightback for pay and movements outside parliament to win the change needed. The movement for Palestine needs to keep mobilising all the way up the election and beyond. Construction unions need to organise for strike action against the attack on the CFMEU.
We will need to keep building resistance whatever happens in the election.
