Trump, Tariffs and the Australian Federal Election

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Jun 29 2025
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Australian voters care mostly about domestic political issues, and international politics seldom feature highly in the minds of citizens in what Donald Horne famously calledThe Lucky Country, a continental state supposedly separated from the worlds troubles by oceans on all sides. But there is no doubt that for Australian leaders and increasingly the Australian public, domestic issues are not so easily separable from the international events that often drive them. Geostrategic competition between the United States and China, the need for an energy transition and inflation all produced existential policy dilemmas in the run-up to Australias 2025 federal election. How politicians align international pressures with domestic political messaging can be significant for voters, even if the voters and the politicians themselves do not deeply understand global politics. In the 2022-25 parliamentary term, international affairs have driven the domestic political agenda so much that by the timeDonald Trump announced Liberation Day tariffs, there was little room left to discuss them.
On September 15, 2021, 9 months before the 2022 federal election which ousted him, Prime Minister Scott Morrisonannounced a new treaty agreementbetween Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom (AUKUS), which cancelled orders for French diesel-electric submarines in favour of nuclear-powered submarines to be developed by the three nations jointly. This action was controversial,infuriating French President Emmanuel Macronand attracting the sharp criticism of former Australian Prime MinistersMalcolm TurnbullandPaul Keating. Mentions mostly negative of AUKUS arefar more common in Australia than in America, where it is treated with indifference or in the UK, where the treaty figures mostly as an amusing intrigue at Frances expense.
However, AUKUS also revealed that Australias core strategic security relationship with the US was indispensable and exclusive in some sense. Despite the USs deepening political instability and the charge, which ispopular in Europe, that America is no longer a reliable security partner, there remains little to no daylight between Canberra and Washington regarding ensuring Australian and Western Pacific security. Australia remains a key player in the USs plans to constrain Chinese expansion. Likewise, the USs wider protection of Australia in the form of theANZUS treatysnuclear umbrella is worth immeasurably more than the cost of upsetting France. Still, both major political parties support the AUKUS treaty, thus nullifying it as an election matter, though no doubt contributing to voter dissatisfaction in general terms.
One area that has divided the major parties for nearly 20 years is climate change and the need for a decarbonising energy transition. The Australian Labor Party (ALP), now in government, favours decarbonisation through renewable energy, while the Liberal Party of Australia, in partnership with the National Party of Australia (the Coalition), seeks a more moderate decarbonisation supplemented by the construction of new nuclear power plants.Both parties support the expansion of Australias natural gas industry, andcoal remains by far the dominant source of electricity generation.
The Coalitionsnuclear policy, launched in late 2024 and gradually de-emphasised as the election approached, was an attempt by the Coalition to align energy renewal policy, an area of political weakness, with an area of political strength: defence and national security. With a domestic nuclear industry, the difficulty of maintaining a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines would be, in theory, reduced.
The problem was that both nuclear power and expensive nuclear submarines were not hugely popular policies on their own, and they did not become more attractive in combination. Australian opposition to nuclear energy and weapons has deep roots, beginning withnuclear tests conducted by the British on Aboriginal landand prominent ALP figures such as former foreign minister Gareth Evans and the Midnight Oil singer, who later became government minister, Peter Garrett, haveconsistently advocated an anti-nuclear stance. The Coalition could not undo decades of political consensus by reframing nuclear energy as a security and energy transition two-for-one.
Neither, however, is the ALPs choice to favour a renewable and green energy transition geopolitically neutral, despite its apparent electoral success. Solar panels are produced at the lowest cost in China, as are electric vehicles and the batteries that power them and store energy produced by intermittent sources of electricity. The governmentsFuture Made in Australiascheme appears doomed to be outcompeted by cheap international imports. So, by emphasising a renewable pathway to net zero, the ALP deepens its economic ties with Australias principal trading partner and, paradoxically, also its principal geostrategic adversary. Australias relationship with China is, in the words of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, caught betweenfear and greed, a condition that has permeated the economic and security policy and is now increasingly relevant to the success of Australias energy renewal.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide borrowed heavily to support workforces that were not working. Then, rising inflation and interest rates compounded economic pain. No one could pretend that the source of rising interest rates was home-grown, and the government has been at pains toremind votersof Australias strong performance in relative terms.Relieving Australian citizens of the costs of living has been the primary challenge of the ALPs first term. The governmentcut taxes, introducedsubsidies on household energy bills, and announced aninvestment fund to increase housing supply. The economy tottered but was held up in part byincreased net migrationand amining boom spurred on by renewed Chinese demandfor raw materials.
The Coalition offered few substantive alternatives to this approach. It did, however, seek tohighlight an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with immigration, at a time of soaring prices and a loosening labour market proved to be a sensitive issue, but was still not amongthe top five issues facing Australian voters just before the election. In relying on a perennial critique of the ALPs relatively pro-migrant stance, the Coalition was on safe ground, but it did not translate this advantage to an overall lead on economic management.
After several years of adapting Australian policy to international instability, Donald Trumps tariff war on the world came just in time for the Australian federal election and for Canada, another of the USs closest allies. The result on Americas northern border was widely seen as a repudiation of Trumps trade belligerence. The tariffs economic impact was less acute than in Canada. Australia is a net importer of US goods, and the government was quick to assure voters thatit would not retaliateby imposing the costs of tariffs directly onto Australian consumers. Australias broader economic partnership with the United States is also tied to pension schemes, now collectively worthUS$ 2.8 trillion (roughly the GDP of Britain), 1 trillion of which is projected to be invested in US stocks over the next decade. The stakes of economic confrontation with the US could not be higher, and it is not surprising that neither party leader wanted to spend too long discussing the issue.
While Prime Minister Albanese said the tariffs werenot the act of a friend, Coalition leader Peter Dutton attempted to pin blame on the ALP for not achieving a carve-out deal for Australian steel, aluminium and other export interests. In the following election debates, both leaders attempted to thread the needle of emphasising the importance of the US alliance while distancing themselves from its leader. Somewhat ridiculously, Albaneseclaimedthat he did not have Trumps number because he believed that Trump did not have a mobile phone. Duttoncriticisedthe Prime Ministers decision to appoint a public detractor of Trump, the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, to the post of ambassador to the US. At the same time,he claimed not to know the President, a favour returned by Trump after the election whenhe claimed that he had no idea who Dutton was.
Whether or not Peter Dutton was strongly associated with Trump during the campaign is unclear, and it is still too early to make definitive statements. Some commentators accused Dutton of being aTemu Trump, withthe instincts of a right-wing populist. While Dutton is certainly right-wing, it is not clear that Duttons personal style muted in comparison with Trump, or years of institutional commitment, first to the police force and then to parliamentary party politics, fit the definition of a populist.
What is clear is that the ALPs approach to governing Australia through internationally driven turbulence has been endorsed by voters, with one ofthe most emphatic election wins in Australian history.Peter Dutton lost his seat as did the Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. However, the general dissatisfaction with major party politics continued, with the combined total of major party votes at its lowest level ever, at just under two-thirds. For now, the government has weathered the storm, but increasing international instability will pile on yet more pressure, testing Australias political establishment to its limits.
Further Reading on E-International Relations
About The Author(s)
Patrick Leslie is a Research Fellow at the School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University.
Editorial Credit(s)
Ibrahim Atta
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