From Washington amid the US election, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says another Trump presidency will require careful handling and robust conversations from Australian politicians. Turnbull reelects with on his negations with Trump around trade tariffs and defence.
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00:00Is anyone winning this at the moment?
00:04No, I think it's pretty much as advertised, a neck-and-neck race, and it's too early
00:10to tell.
00:11Look, it certainly is.
00:12What are you going to be looking at?
00:14Is there any particular state or part of a state that you're interested in to give you
00:18a sign of where this is going to go?
00:20Well, I'd be looking at those areas where you can get, even in states which are solidly
00:26one way or the other, where you can get a contrast between what happened in 2020 and
00:32what happened today, so you can see the trends in voting and whether you can extrapolate
00:37from that.
00:38But, look, it's a huge country, and it's very complex, voluntary voting, which obviously
00:44we don't have in Australia, so turnout is important.
00:48And whether people do turn out and, you know, on what issues is critical.
00:53Well, it's a toss-up at the moment.
00:55You've written an essay heading into this election about, well, what's at stake for
00:59Australia and also how to deal with Donald Trump, should he be back in the White House.
01:04You as Prime Minister had to deal with him, and we famously know your first phone call
01:10was a pretty robust one over the refugee resettlement deal.
01:14What is your advice to Anthony Albanese, but other leaders too, about how to deal with
01:18Trump?
01:19Well, my advice is that you should not do what everyone will tell you to do, which is
01:23to suck up to him.
01:24I mean, the newspaper columns are full of people, not all of them are grifters, but
01:28a lot of them are, who are saying, oh, you've got to suck up to him and flatter him.
01:34And of course, people typically do that to guys like Trump, because they're big, you
01:38know, bullying, bombastic, narcissistic personalities, and a lot of people naturally want to do that.
01:45The problem with that is that that's what Trump wants, of course.
01:49But you don't win his respect that way, and you won't get what you want to achieve.
01:53So if all you want is a pat on the head and a photo op, then I suppose you can do that.
01:59But if you want to actually want to get good outcomes, in my case for Australia, you've
02:04got to be able to stand your ground and make your case.
02:07And I did so on a number of issues and incurred his displeasure, you know, famously over the
02:13refugee deal.
02:15But I got the outcome Australia needed.
02:17So what would that mean, for example, should Trump be back and want to impose the tariffs
02:21he's promised globally of 10 to 20 percent?
02:26Australia would obviously want to carve out from that.
02:27We'd be wanting to say, hey, we're pretty good friends here, give us a break.
02:31How should our prime minister approach that?
02:33Well, I actually faced exactly that problem with the steel tariffs.
02:38And I persuaded, now, this is where, you know, I wasn't saying to Trump, I'll remember
02:43all our years of mateship and all the wars we fought in.
02:47I made a thoughtful, business-like economic argument to him that it wasn't in his interest
02:55to impose those tariffs.
02:57We went into a lot of detail.
02:59It was an intelligently transactional discussion.
03:03And I persuaded him to change his mind and to do so against the advice of a lot of his
03:11trade advisers like Lightiser and, you know, his commerce secretary and so forth.
03:16So he, you know, the critical thing about him, though, David, and this is really the
03:22guts of it, a normal, you know, regular president or prime minister will have staff and advisers
03:29and a whole official system that you can interact with.
03:34Now, with Trump, he'll have those people, but he doesn't pay a lot of attention to them.
03:39So the advocacy really is down to the prime minister or, you know, the counterpart, the
03:46prime minister or the president or whatever the other country is.
03:48What about the ambassador?
03:49Does the ambassador matter much with Trump?
03:51Well, much less with Trump.
03:54Much, much, much less with Trump.
03:55I mean, Joe Hockey did, you know, work really hard, was a good ambassador, tried to engage
04:02with a lot of the Trump people.
04:03Played golf with him?
04:04Well, yeah, he was at a golf match, but he had nothing to do with the critical negotiations
04:09with Trump.
04:10And that's no reflection on him.
04:12I don't think any ambassador.
04:13So it won't matter that Kevin Rudd has said things in the past about Trump?
04:16You don't think that matters?
04:17The worst thing we could do is withdraw Kevin, because, you know, News Corp or the Australian
04:24or Sky News says we should.
04:25I mean, that is I mean, they've got an axe to grind, you know, I'll understand why.
04:30But the reality is, if you give in to bullies, all you do is get more bullying.
04:36So you so I stood up to Trump, I had a real row with him, but he wasn't happy with me.
04:42He was furious.
04:43But I won his respect.
04:45And that was extremely valuable for Australia.
04:48Orcus, we know you're not a fan of the nuclear submarine deal.
04:51Well, it's not a question of me.
04:53I just don't think we'll get any.
04:55You're also in the essay you've written quite pessimistic, I suppose, about the bargaining
04:59position that we're in.
05:00Should Trump win?
05:02Because we really need these submarines.
05:04Well, that's not it's not that's the real the problem is that we that they need them.
05:09This is the real problem is we were under their law.
05:13And so I don't think this is really a Trump issue, to be quite honest with you.
05:16The deal you gave me to Kamala Harris, these are at risk.
05:20The problem is that we cannot get the Virginia class submarines under the American Orcus
05:27legislation unless the president at the time certifies that their Navy doesn't need them.
05:35They are already at least 17 Virginia class submarines short of where they need to be.
05:41But couldn't the president reducing half as many as they their Navy needs to sustain them?
05:46But couldn't the president say, well, hang on, Australia is chipping in a fair bit of
05:49money to our industrial base.
05:50They're stepping up in the region.
05:52This is this a pretty good deal for us.
05:54No, but he's got to say he's got to say he's.
05:57He or he or she has got to say that the provision of those submarines would not detract from
06:04the underwater capabilities of the U.S. Navy.
06:07And you know as well as I do that that it's not just Donald's motive.
06:14America first is the zeitgeist.
06:16You know, if you've got the U.S. Navy saying we can't spare them, what chance is there
06:21of an American president saying, I'm going to take these subs that you say our Navy says
06:27you need?
06:28They need.
06:29Finally, is the problem is we haven't got we've got no leverage, you see.
06:32So we've done a bad deal and you won't get you you're not going to get any respect from
06:37Donald Trump, a property developer, for doing a dumb deal.
06:40Finally, is it clear to you what a Kamala Harris presidency would mean for our region
06:45and this critical China U.S. relationship?
06:47Well, I think it would mean more continuity, I mean, more predictability.
06:52So, you know, you would I would expect, you know, more continuity from what we've seen
06:59with Biden, her main foreign affairs adviser is a man called Philip Gordon, who is a very
07:05clear eyed, you know, professional diplomat and foreign policy expert.
07:13And I think it's I think it'll be hard headed, focused, but consistent.
07:18The issue with Trump, of course, is the erratic, flaky, unpredictable part of it, which, of
07:24course, he does deliberately.
07:25I mean, that's part of his style.
07:28So it's not a it is a feature, not a bug.