When Australian politician Anthony Albanese was asked about Donald Trump in 2017, he replied “he scares me.” Albanese is still Prime Minister and will be forced to work with Trump in the world. And like the leaders of other liberal democracies, good Australians fear the kind of damage Trump is doing to the psyche of their countrymen. The Albanese ambassador to the US has even deleted tweets criticizing Trump to protect himself from his petty anger.
Kevin Rudd, the left-wing former prime minister of Australia and current ambassador to the US, has deleted old tweets that recently gained attention from the Australian public. Arguably the most important tweet was posted on June 1, 2020, the day Trump ordered the police to use violence against civil rights protesters to go to church and place a Bible outside.
“The most destructive president in history,” Rudd wrote in a now-deleted tweet. “You are dragging America and democracy through the mud. He lives by encouraging, not healing, separation. He abuses Christianity, the church and the bible to justify violence. All aided and abetted by Murdoch’s FoxNews network in America which feeds this.”
Rudd also included a photo of Trump holding a Bible during the incident, which gained widespread attention in Australia after an Australian journalist was attacked by police while opening a photo shoot for Trump.
But Rudd’s deleted tweets have received unwanted attention at home, and his website tries to explain that the intention was simply to clarify his statement was not the official position of the Australian government.
“In his previous role as head of a US-based think tank, Mr. Rudd was a regular commentator on American politics,” read a statement posted on Rudd’s website. “Out of respect for the office of the President of the United States, and following the election of President Trump, Ambassador Rudd has now removed these past comments from his website and social media.”
The statement goes on to explain that this has been done, “to eliminate the possibility that such comments could be misconstrued as reflecting his position as Ambassador and, by extension, the views of the Australian Government.” Ambassador Rudd looks forward to working with President Trump and his team to further strengthen the US-Australia partnership. “
And that alliance is what Rudd and the wider Australian government are trying to preserve. Because the relationship between the US and Australia is incredibly strong, but Trump’s plans have the potential to shake the economic stability that Australia depends on, given the fact that China is its largest trading partner. Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on Chinese exports to the US will raise prices for American consumers, but is also expected to have a negative impact on the global economy, costing Australia up to $10 billion a year.
“If you put tariffs on China, you slow down their economy, that means their demand for exports will go down and the incomes of our workers, who produce those goods, will go down,” Warwick McKibbin, professor of economics at the Australian National University, told Nine News.
The US has incredible influence around the world as the world’s largest economy with military bases scattered all over the place. Australia signed a landmark new defense deal in 2021 (under President Joe Biden) called AUKUS that will see the US sell nuclear submarines under. But as the reality of another Trump office begins, world leaders are trying to make sure they don’t do anything to upset the incoming president.
To be clear, Trump has many powerful allies who lead certain nations of the world. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele was perhaps the first to congratulate Trump on his victory after Fox News called the race early Wednesday. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, who has spent the past year fighting a war that has killed at least 43,000 people in Gaza, also sent his congratulations early. And the Hungarian leader Viktor Orban is another friend who many see as a natural friend of the destruction of human rights.
Trump is determined to do massive damage to the US with his plan to deport millions of people, target political enemies with the military, and pardon MAGA criminals currently in prison. But Trump will have an impact beyond America’s borders and world leaders are bracing for a storm. There were surveillance scenes the last time Trump was in office. There won’t be any guardrails to speak of at this point.
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