Beyond the stockade – is Australia ready for US isolationism?
Jul 25, 2024
A Republican administration under Donald Trump would bring a fundamental change to America’s engagement with the world, necessitating a radical reassessment and reformulation of Australia’s foreign, trade, and defence policies. Falling back on the faithful ally tactic would not suffice to buffer the prosperity and security of Australians.
Australian policymakers would need to embrace a very different understanding of international relations. Trump must be understood as the bugler signalling the American retreat. The political, social, and economic model that was the foundation of the American hegemony no longer fits the modern world, and Trump’s instinct is to withdraw.
An incoming Trump administration would negate global efforts to reach net-zero by 2050 (and possibly this century), undertake a fundamentally mercantilist approach to trade policy, and prioritise American security above all other countries.
He is longing for a simpler time when neither market capitalism, nor the values of the American individualist, materialist culture, were questioned. Trump’s impulse is to close the gates and to lock out the intractable confusion; to withdraw America from the discordant world that won’t acknowledge American preeminence.
Trump would retreat behind a stockade. George Washington advised his successors “to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world” and Thomas Jefferson promised “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none.” But unlike these founders, Trump’s version of isolationism cares little for anything beyond the stockade.
Trump’s stockade would be material: hiding behind a literal wall along the Mexican border and sheltering under an “iron dome”. An economic barricade of tariffs would complement them. The consequences for the world beyond would be momentous, and can only be touched on here.
The “iron dome missile defence system to ensure that no enemy can strike [the American] homeland”, that Trump advocates, will raise alarm bells with experts versed in past strategic policy debates over the issue of nuclear defences. Balance among the nuclear-armed states is maintained by the notion of a second strike capability; that is, a surprise nuclear attack on one nation is deterred by the certainty the attacker cannot avoid a retaliatory second strike.
China and Russia must already be contemplating the implications of their nuclear deterrents becoming redundant were America to become impregnable. The fear that an America protected from nuclear attack would feel free to employ its conventional forces anywhere would worry not just Beijing and Moscow; the whole world would fear an unrestrained America. Only America would be secure.
The massive economic, climate, security, and technological forces sweeping the world and driving mass displacement and migration cannot be stopped by a wall. People searching for a better life, or escaping the ravages of climate and war, could be held back temporarily by a wall. Trump would keep them out of America, but this is a global problem the disruptive impacts of which will destabilise the world, and a wall would only exacerbate them.
The implications of Trump’s trade and economic policies are clear. He has said that the only way for other nations to “sell their product is to build it in America… and only in America.” Trump has proposed a 60% tariff on all Chinese goods and a minimum 10% on all other US imports. The impacts this would have on European economies, and industries in developing economies in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere are incalculable.
Trump, in effect, proposes a sort of contemporary mercantilist policy, based on the employment of state power to enhance America’s wealth and diminish that of rival national powers. Trump wants to reverse the trade balance so that America becomes the world’s major exporter of goods and energy, a one-way shift with little concern for the economies of other nations or the adverse impact on allies and partners in Europe, and North and Southeast Asia. The emphasis on the extraction and export of fossil fuels just emphasises the lack of concern for non-Americans facing climate threats.
How these rapacious trade and economic policies would affect global trade patterns, the global financial system and flows of foreign direct investment, or the viability of the America dollar as a global currency, is at this stage indeterminable. But the consequences would be far-reaching.
Inevitably other states would push back on these measures; by investing heavily in their own defensive systems and technologies, imposing their own tariffs, or likely seeking out compatible states to form economic, trade, and security blocs. It is impossible to predict the trajectory of international relations were Trump to win and attempt to construct his stockade.
Trump’s stockade mentality cannot be treated with insouciance by Australian policymakers. It is of course possible that Trump might not win or would be thwarted in his designs. The indications are, however, that if successful he would be surrounded by like-minded advisors and a complaint Congress.
Australia depends on access to healthy and open markets for trade. If China’s economy were to be adversely affected by tariffs and trade restrictions Australia’s economy would flounder. If preventative war broke out in the region Australia would have little capacity to defend itself. America is unlikely to sally forth to our aid from behind the stockade. Trying to anticipate the impact of a Trump presidency, even on the sketchy details we now know, is crucial and urgent.
A geopolitical shift would be imminent if Trump won. A resolution of the Ukraine conflict brokered by Trump, and to Putin’s benefit, would have enormous reverberations in Europe and for NATO. China and Russia would likely emerge as stronger partners and dominate Eurasia. Again, while unknowable, for Australia the repercussions of a shake-up of transatlantic strategic relations would be profound.
The quandary is that the future looks binary. The future Trump offers would be radically different from that we can reasonably expect from Kamala Harris. Preparing for both would be daunting. Official comment on the American presidential election is not to be expected, but it is to be hoped the magnitude of the threatened change has been recognised internally.
Mike Scrafton was a Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, senior Defence executive, CEO of a state statutory body, and chief of staff and ministerial adviser to the minister for defence.
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