Pop quiz: which country is the world’s leading producer of soybeans? Instinct might say China, or perhaps Japan, given the traditional centrality of soy to East Asian cuisine. (more…)
Category: USA
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Trump’s absurd trade policies will impoverish Americans and harm the world
US President Donald Trump is trashing the world trade system over a basic economic fallacy. He wrongly claims that America’s trade deficit is caused by the rest of the world ripping off the US, repeatedly stating things such as, “Over the decades, they ripped us off like no country has never been ripped off in history…” (more…)
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Keating says Trump’s tariffs mean death knell for NATO and ANZUS
Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating says Donald Trump’s neo-Monroeism has made it clear that America now calls only the Western hemisphere home. (more…)
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In every China-US war game scenario I’ve seen, America has lost
Global security alliances are in turmoil, and Australia needs to critically rethink its defence and foreign affairs policies. (more…)
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James Curran’s closing remarks to the Sovereignty and Security Conference on 31 March
The sense of urgency and rapid change that has pervaded the discussion today [31 March] has not obscured the fact that, as we know, this issue of the abrupt change in the relationship with the United States has been coming since at least Trump’s first term. And really from the disaster of Iraq and the 2008 global financial crisis. (more…)
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Trump’s Ukraine-Middle East hypocrisy
Vance: Is Trump “aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now”? (more…)
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Go north, old man
Donald Trump’s pledge to push the boundary of the United States of America 2000 kilometres north is not another rush of blood, but channels 300 years of imperial rivalries over resources. (more…)
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Narcissism in politics to the fore
Following World War II, a branch of American intellectuals became preoccupied with the notion of totalitarianism. (more…)
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Ivy League convulsions – will we be next?
The shock waves continue from Columbia University’s capitulation to Trump administration demands that undermine its independence. The world is watching and waves are already crashing on Australia’s shores. (more…)
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When war is around be careful what you wish for!
If anyone is yet to be disgusted with war and the reckless use of armed force, recent news from Gaza and Ukraine will change your mind. (more…)
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Chief justice rebukes Trump over calls to impeach judges who rule against him
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” said John Roberts, the chief justice of the US Supreme Court. (more…)
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The limits of diplomacy
We live in a global community, and many of us enjoy the benefits. A far greater number have no such enjoyment, existing in disadvantage; in poverty, hunger, homelessness, oppression, violence of one kind or another- preventable travesties. (more…)
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Trump is surveying Australian academics about gender diversity and China – what does this mean for unis and their research?
Shortly after taking office, US President Donald Trump issued executive orders banning federal funding on so-called “woke” research. (more…)
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The MAGA answer to DEI is a return to the golden days of exclusion
When the New York Times reported on a tense Cabinet meeting in the White House, it became clear that one of the few members to take on the DOGE boss, Elon Musk, was Sean Duffy, Trump’s new transportation secretary. Although a number of cabinet secretaries were neither accustomed to nor happy with the scorched-earth approach to government efficiency that Musk’s fresh-faced goons were undertaking, they were reluctant to speak openly against Musk. (more…)
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A five-minute scroll
As media campaigning ramps up for the forthcoming election, Peter Dutton avoids the question of his polling while Media Watch reveals the Liberal Party connections of Freya Leach and Juice Media produces a satirical clip on majority government. On global tensions, Professor Keyu Jin from the London School of Economics speaks about China and the US. (more…)
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ANZUS and NATO are kaput and Trump doesn’t care
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have proven too gutless, so far, to speak frankly to Australians about the implications of the imposition of new tariffs by the US, the first of many, to be imposed on Australia. They have expressed some ritual regrets and said it was a poor reward for their sycophantic grovelling over the years. They have not said that the coming election is the perfect time for blunt discussions of what it all means. (more…)
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The Manichean moment is over
If Donald Trump has done nothing else, he should have convinced Australian strategic thinkers that the long-standing mantra of China-bad/America-good is no longer appropriate. (more…)
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Sultanistic or neo-fascist? President Trump and 21st century ideology
In trying to understand US President Donald Trump, the proposition has been put that he is sultanistic. In many respects, Trump’s second presidency does appear to be “sultanistic”. (more…)
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US-Europe relations flipped by Trump
For most of the post-World War II period, relations between Europe and the United States have followed a consistent pattern regardless of changes in government on both sides of the Atlantic. (more…)
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AUKUS, Trump and independence
How should Australia respond when the US, our closest ally, is engaged in a very public and petulant global meltdown? (more…)
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Imagine a secure Australia post-ANZUS and AUKUS
Let’s test Hugh White’s contention, expressed in The Saturday Paper on 8 March (‘Trump’s conduct on Ukraine prompts strategic reckoning”), that Australia will perhaps sooner rather than later have to confront the end of the US Alliance. (more…)
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Escaping Thucydides’s trap: A discussion between Graham Allison and Henry Huiyao Wang
During the recently concluded Munich Security Conference, Professor Graham Allison from Harvard University met Dr Huiyao Wang, founder and president of the Centre for China and Globalisation based in Beijing, to discuss Dr Wang’s new book (“Escaping Thucydides’s Trap: Dialogue with Graham Allison on China-US Relations”) which is grounded on and develops arguments made in Professor Allison’s highly influential 2017 book, “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap.” (more…)
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Is Peter Dutton the tip of a Trumpist foreign policy for Australia?
In 1951 Australia turned to its newfound “great and powerful friend” America, consummating the move by signing the ANZUS treaty. ANZUS remains seriously misunderstood by most Australians, especially among the ageing ranks of conservative aficionados in Australia where it has the status of a holy cow. This is despite the fact that the treaty is only an agreement to “consult” if ever Australia’s security is threatened. It is no guarantee that the US will come to Australia’s defence, whatever threat may arise. (more…)
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Who’s who in the war business
“All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” Voltaire (more…)
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Power and alienation
The hollow man thought he had
power over everything,
a snap of the fingers
was the sound of a king. (more…) -
Australia’s China diplomacy: Is it ready for a world without US certainty?
President Trump’s emerging foreign policy ideology is forcing US allies, including Australia, to reassess their strategic positions. As American leadership becomes increasingly transactional, Canberra must navigate a shifting global order by balancing security concerns with economic resilience, forging new regional partnerships, and maintaining strategic flexibility in an era of geopolitical uncertainty. (more…)
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Are America’s values our values anymore?
No issue in the forthcoming election is as important as Australia’s international identity and the crisis in the Western alliance about its senior partner, the United States. The alliance is fragmenting and, it appears, President Trump is daring Europe to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression independently. He wants NATO members to double their defence spending so they are no longer freeloading from America’s military spending. Other allies, including Australia, should do so too. At just the same time, he is beginning to wage economic war against most of Europe, Canada, and Australia,by swingeing tariffs, as a punishment, he claims, for stealing American jobs. (more…)
