As Election Day looms in the United States, much has been written about how this is a poll of consequence for the country. Donald Trump has promised to reverse policies since leaving office, crack down on undocumented immigrants, introduce more tariffs and finish building that wall. His opponent, Kamala Harris, has warned that Trump is a dangerous threat to democratic governance itself. But what about the rest of the world? How is the fate of Australia tied to who is in the White House? Would a Trump presidency mean business as usual Down Under?

Academic American Studies Dr. Rodney Taveira argues in the affirmative, and Crikey’s political editor Bernard Keane makes the case in the negative.

Its pro forma to declare the next election as the most important in history. Politicians like to tell voters the stakes this time they are higher than ever, when in fact it is unusual for radical changes to result from elections. For every 1860 or 1932 election in American history, there is a 1968—an election that seemed momentous but resulted in remarkable continuity in both domestic and foreign policy in the US.

But the 2024 US presidential election it is crucial – as much for other countries as it is for Americans.

Trump’s economic policies will be extremely disruptive to America and everyone else. To differentiate himself from the Biden administration, which maintained most of the tariffs Trump introduced during his last presidency, he committed to a 10-20% tariff on each import, including from allies such as Australia. China will slap a 60% tariff on everything, while Trump is already promising that the Europeans will “pay a high price“.

As you’d expect from such a self-defeating measure, Trump’s tariffs have higher than expected the negative impact on the US economy last time, even in those industries Trump claimed to protect. Both the Chinese and the Europeans responded with their own tariffs on American products in 2018. Already the Europeans are preparing a quick and hard response to Trump’s tariffs this time.

American importers already are preparation of price increasesillustrating how inflationary Trump’s tariffs will be. modeling suggests that even without retaliation, Trump’s plan will impose more than $500 billion in new taxes on Americans and destroy nearly 700,000 jobs. But elsewhere? United Kingdom modeling suggests a 0.6-0.7% reduction in GDP in both the US and China, with a smaller impact in Europe, mainly Germany, given its reliance on car exports to US.

Australia would face not only a 10-20% tariff. 16 billion dollars of ours in exports to the US but also the impact of another Trump policy. Trump plans to remove the independence of the US Federal Reserve so that he can lower interest rates, which would otherwise inevitably rise due to the inflationary impact of his tariffs. As an economist points out Saul Eslakethis will undermine confidence in the US dollar and de facto to strengthen the Australian dollar – which is bad news for any Australian exporter.

What no one seems to have modeled is the impact of a full-blown trade war on the global economy, with Trump responding to EU and Chinese retaliation, or the stubborn failure of the US trade deficit to disappear as a result of his tariffs – America’s Trade Deficit grew to new records under Trump last time — with more hikes, leading to further 1930s-style retaliation. Moreover, there is a risk that Trump’s deliberate undermining of the US dollar will lead to other major economic blocs looking to do the same to their own currencies, offering- not just a trade war, but a currency war.

Apart from geopolitical tensions, this would exacerbate the impact on global GDP, China’s economic growth – which has so much influence on Australian growth and fiscal policy – and reduce the global trading system to smoldering ruins, all they will flow to the bottom. lines of Australian exporters, workers and governments.

Trump is not only dedicated to making the global economy less secure. Its pro-dictator foreign policy directly contradicts Australia’s foreign policy, most notably in Ukraine. Russia’s war against Ukraine will be in its fourth year when Trump is inaugurated. His policy is to reward, not punish, Russian aggression by cutting off US military aid to Ukraine and forcing it to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.

A Trump-imposed “peace” in Ukraine will be a modern-day Munich that only illustrates the benefits of breaking international norms and attacking neighbors, and would bring even closer the threat of Russian attacks on European countries (it will also be interesting to see how fans react Australia’s MAGA to such a disaster, given that the Albanian government has been repeatedly criticized by the Coalition for not being sufficiently pro-Ukraine).

There is one more area where a Trump victory will have an impact on Australia. Big right wing parties and their media cheerleaders at News Corp and Seven are already Trump supporters trying to import Trump’s political tactics. The result is a toxic politics of white discontent, racial division, and male rage in which American conspiracy theories and culture wars are reflected here, regardless of how little relevance they have.

If Trump wins again, the lesson they will learn is that such tactics can only be defeated temporarily, but they will triumph in the end. The politics of hate, racism, misogyny, denial and anger will be given a turbo boost in an Australian polity that already faces more division and bitterness than at any time in decades. And that may be the biggest damage of all.

Read the opposing argument by Rodney Taveira.