We have all come to expect demeaning and graceless behaviour from Donald Trump. Once again, our expectations have not been disappointed.
In another tirade against his Nato allies for their refusal to involve themselves in the dangerous standoff in the strait of Hormuz, the US president has threatened to “never forget” who helped and who didn’t. He ridiculed the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the Royal Navy for too little, too late. And he expressed his “surprise” that Australia failed to offer some kind of military support as usual. Historically, Trump perhaps has reason for his surprise.
The Nato partners are effectively telling Trump “You broke it, you own it”. Starmer appears to be finding his spine, saying that he “will not buckle” under Trump’s pressure. And Trump’s not happy. Australia is keeping its head down but it is sticking with the crowd.
It has become clear that Trump is out of his depth. He does not know what to do next. He extends deadlines while he deploys even more military force to the Gulf, as though boots on the ground are what’s needed. That would be a disaster, like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
His bluster and bullying are not cutting through. Nor is his creative fiction about on-again-off-again negotiations with the Iranian government. While Trump has not yet run out of options, good options are shrinking fast. There is no victory in sight and it is by no means clear what “victory” might look like.
His allies are not prepared to up the ante in a crisis that is already damaging the global economy and could without warning escalate unpredictably and dangerously. This is not a time for turning up the heat, especially when Iran is standing on the throat of the global oil market.
Anthony Albanese quite rightly brushed off Trump’s criticism. But both the prime minister and Richard Marles, the deputy prime minister, are dishing up word salads as they try to weave their way through the contradictions in US policy. It is one thing to dissuade Iran from producing nuclear weapons; it is quite another to support the use of massive rocket attacks by both the US and Israel in the absence of any evidence that Iran was intending to do so.
The international rules-based order, such a frequent trope in Australian foreign policy pronouncements, is dead. The construction of a new rules-based system is critical if Australia’s economic, political and strategic interests are to be achieved. We work with partners, not potentates.
The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, at Davos called out the consequences of the Trump presidency. Just last week at the National Press Club, the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, delivered unvarnished comments on Trump’s lack of an exit strategy. Marles was reduced to circumlocutions and platitudes.
The Albanese government, it appears, is reluctant to speak truth to power. It prefers to duck and weave, adopt the lowest possible profile, compromising Australia’s broader strategic and economic interests by so doing.
It is evident that the Albanese government finds itself in the cleft stick between our long-term security dependence on the US and the global consequences of a US that’s gone rogue. The current crisis is far from over, with Iran slowly gaining the upper hand as it spreads the pain of the Israel-US attack across the entire global community.
Ironically, Iran seems to be following the Trump unpredictability play book. Trump’s unilateral imposition of tariffs as an instrument of American statecraft early in his presidency has effectively sanctioned Iran’s use of punitive energy restrictions (not forgetting fertilisers, helium and naphtha) as an asymmetric weapon.
To escape the cleft stick, the Albanese government has little option but to live with Iranian control of the strait of Hormuz (as we accommodate Egypt’s control of the Suez canal) and counsel our great and powerful friend to employ what’s left of its diplomatic brain rather than its military brawn.
Trump’s modus operandi is to demean anyone who stands up to him, and equally to demand more from anyone who concedes to him. Trump’s shot across Albanese’s bows is a sign that Albanese has his attention – in the right way. It is an indication that Albanese is starting to exercise Australia’s agency in Australia’s interests.
That’s the way to deal with petulance. And it’s how not to be taken for granted.