How Trump Lost Asia (With Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull) — The David Frum Show

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: The United States, not by accident or circumstance, but by design, has become a less dependable ally. [00:00:18] Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to The David Fromm Show. I'm David Fromm, a staff writer at The Atlantic. My guest this week will be former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and we will discuss the deterioration of the position, the strategic and economic position of the Western democracies in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans in the presidencies of Donald Trump. The book this week will be Red Dawn Over China, How Communism Conquered a Quarter of Humanity, but before either the dialogue with Malcolm Turnbull or the book discussion, some opening thoughts about the question of President Trump's wealth and what is to happen to it after he leaves office. I wrote about this subject in The Atlantic this past weekend, and you can see my thoughts there in much more elaborated form. There are some major themes that I think really need to be stressed again in a very direct way, and I'd like to do that here with you now. President Trump entered office in January 2025 as a wealthy man, as he has been almost all of his life, thanks to the great inheritance from his father, thanks to his earnings from The Apprentice and other TV programs, and thanks to some of his own business achievements. But what, uh, but his own business career has been a one of sharp ups and downs punctuated by, uh, bankruptcies of the, of the businesses that he's owned losses to his investors. But there's no question that he is a, he and his family are very, very wealthy today with a fortune numbered in the multiple billions of dollars made in an historic, accumulated in an astonishingly short time. How exactly did he do that? Well, as I read it, there are three major streams of payments that he has received. Three major sources, uh, sources of wealth that he's received since he became president. The first takes the form of payments from people, governments, and entities with interest before the United States government. He has, for example, received large payments from American media companies, famously the payment from Amazon to make a documentary of his wife, Melania, and settlements from Paramount, Meta, and ABC, money that will supposedly go to his presidential library. He's received gifts from foreign governments and entities as well. This stream of payments and gifts worth many millions of dollars has made Trump a rich man by any standard. The second source of wealth to him has been his involvement in the cryptocurrency and other crypto token markets where the president has backed cryptocurrency issuing companies. Many of the currencies and tokens that have been issued by these Trump backed companies rapidly became worthless. The third source has been a series of stock and other transactions in the oil markets and other markets. This year, the president's investment accounts, which the white house says are managed by third party financial institutions, have traded oil and gas stocks. This has happened even as the president is deeply involved in the war in Iran, which has certainly had impact on this industry. Now, America has a long tradition of letting bygones be bygones. And I'm not looking very deeply at the activities of former presidents. But the enormous fortune that has been accumulated in such dubious ways in such a short time raises important questions, not just about right and wrong, not just about whether individual economic laws have been obeyed, but important questions about the future of American democracy. There are examples all over the planet of authoritarian rulers whose families accumulated enormous wealth in their time in office, the authoritarian ruler then loses power, uh, some of the fortune is clawed back, but much is kept by the family. And that fortune becomes a basis for the family's return to political power in, in a new generation. We've seen that in Peru with the Fujimori dynasty in the Philippines with the Marcos dynasty. Could we see such a thing in America? You know, the next generation of, of Trumps are going to inherit a lot of money, but they're going to also inherit a lot of potential legal vulnerabilities. And one of the lessons that they've learned from the presidency of Donald Trump is when you have a large fortune with such a big question mark over it, one way to be safe is to reclaim political power and shut down investigations and law enforcement and accountability. And that way, um, that way the, the money that you achieved, whatever question marks are about it, well, no questions can be asked because there's no one to ask. Questions while this, while this enormous accumulation, rapid accumulation of uncertain wealth remains. It continues as not just a question mark over the future of the Trump family, but a question mark over the future of American democracy. It's a risk in a way that the wealth of the Fujimori's in Peru has been a risk in a way that the wealth of the Marcos in the Philippines has been a risk. Americans are not backward looking people. They don't go in for retribution. In the Biden presidency, pretty clearly Attorney General Merrick Garland wanted to stay well away from the whole Trump business and to leave Trump as much alone as Trump's record would possibly allow Merrick Garland to leave Trump alone. But if there is a post-Trump administration that is concerned to restore American democracy, I don't think that kind of averting the eyes method that was practiced by Merrick Garland and President Biden is safe or sustainable. To try to get to the bottom of the Trump fortune, to try to reclaim any part of it that was achieved in ways that are unlawful or improper. That's not an act of retribution, that's an act of democratic self-defense and maybe, ominously, an indispensable act of democratic self-defense if the United States is not to follow the path of other failed democracies that took one blow from a first generation of authoritarian kleptocratic family and suffered the decisive blow from the second generation. And now, my dialogue with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Malcolm Turnbull served as Australia's 29th Prime Minister from September 2015 to August 2018. His government legalized same-sex marriage in Australia, simplified Australia's complex system of child benefits, and attempted, with partial success, to reduce business taxes. Australian writer-centered politics depends on a complex balance between urban and rural, social moderates, and social conservatives. Internal conflicts within the coalition led to Turnbull's ouster as Prime Minister in 2018. Malcolm Turnbull was trained as a barrister, co-founded the first Australian tech company to list on NASDAQ, and led the Australian operations of Goldman Sachs before entering Parliament in 2004. Malcolm Turnbull now chairs Australia's International Hydropower Association, invests in technology ventures, and speaks and writes on democratic norms and climate and energy issues in Australia and around the world. His memoir, a bigger picture, was published in 2020. Malcolm Turnbull, thank you so much for making time for the David Frum Show today. [00:07:04] Speaker 1: Great to be with you, David. [00:07:06] Speaker 2: So let me begin with what I know has been one of the major themes of your political work since 2018. And that is your observation of a problem or of a challenge that exists in Australia, and really in every English-speaking country and across the democratic world, this tension within the former right of center between those who are business-minded, those who are more statist, between those who want to develop more cosmopolitan and modern values, those who look backward, those who integrate into the world, those who seek nationalism as a refuge from the world. And those who want to do that, and those who want to do that, and those who want to do that, and those who want to participate in a global democratic partnership, and those who reject those ideas. First, how do you describe what has happened? How do you explain it? And what are the stakes? [00:07:52] Speaker 1: Well, I think much of what is going on, David, on the right of politics, and these terms, as we know, are very, very plastic, is not about conservatism at all. I mean, Donald Trump, for example, and MAGA are not conservatives. You know, they are disruptors, they are radicals, revolutionaries, if you like, populists, but they're certainly not conservatives in any meaningful sense. I think what we've got is a bundle of things that have come together, resentment about cost of living, slower economic growth, people feeling that they're not getting ahead, feeling the system is not working for them. You've got people resentful about the pace of change, you see this, you know, obviously with immigration, and I'm not talking about illegal immigration here, I'm talking about, you know, legal, government-permitted immigration. A lot of people find that confronting, their societies are changing, they're struggling with change. You've seen the, you know, disruptions from globalization, obviously a lot of manufacturing jobs, a lot of jobs of every description have gone, and there'll be more to come, more to go to, I suspect, with AI. So we're living in an environment where the pace and scale of change is unprecedented, and I think that rocks people. Now, at the same time, and I'm about to do what Enoch Powell famously said politicians should never do, and blame the media, because, as he said, a politician who complains about the press is like a ship's captain who complains about the sea. But the reality is, as the media, and you and I know this, having lived through it, has dramatically changed. We've gone from a world in which there was a relatively small number of curated platforms, newspapers with editors, radio stations, and television stations with directors and producers, to this, you know, plethora, this multitude of voices, some of which are curated, many of them which are not. But in a world where now narrowcasting can actually be a successful business model, and not just in magazines. And so what you now get is this intense competition for attention, and, of course, the way people seek to achieve that, whether it's the automatic algorithms on the social media platforms or it's the producers at Fox News, is by, you know, entertainment, by riling people up, by promoting division, by promoting animosity, by, you know, appealing to our, you know, the worst angels of our nature, and I think all of that has created this toxic brew that has been devastating for what used to be called the center right of politics. [00:11:01] Speaker 2: Well, let's do a close up on what happened in Australia, and one of the issues that rocked your government was your attempt to reduce Australia's quite heavy taxation of enterprises. And that, which you might have thought would be an issue that would unite all brands of center right people, led to a rupture in your part, in your coalition, where some in your coalition said, well, we're fine lowering taxes on smaller businesses that don't compete globally, but not on the big businesses that have to compete globally, and that are actually most exposed to the cost of capital and to the burden of, and to capital competition. [00:11:39] Speaker 1: David, I don't think that's quite right, if I don't, forgive me, but I don't think that's, I mean, certainly there were people that had different views. The big divisive issue on the right of politics when I was leading the Liberal Party, and I led the Liberal Party on two occasions, in opposition and in government, was our approach to climate change. You know, I always wanted to, I always wanted to, I always took the view that this was a, it was prudent and rational to reduce emissions, that you had to accept the reality of climate science, global warming was a fact, there's no point talking about whether you believed or disbelieved in it, it was physics. But, but, and you've seen this in the US in particular, you've got this, you know, cultural, this was turned into a culture war. And so instead of talking about these challenges in an objective, rational way, informed by engineering and economics, they're informed by ideology and idiocy. So the, so the, you know, it was really more, uh, the, the, the bugbear that I faced with the right, uh, although they didn't like the same sex marriage legalization either, but 62% of the country voted for it. So it was a bit hard to argue with that politically, but the thing that was always the, you know, destabilizing issue was the approach to, uh, energy policy. [00:13:11] Speaker 2: And do you find the withdrawal of American leadership on that issue made, made your life more complicated? Yes, of course it has. [00:13:17] Speaker 1: Because you see, Trump is Trump and Trumpism and margarism has its imitators everywhere around the world. I mean, at the last election here in Australia, uh, Peter Dutton, the liberal leader who lost very badly and lost his own seat, uh, was, you know, not in different ways, effectively channeling Trump. You know, it's very alluring because the media is so global. I mean, we spend as much time, I'm sure Canadians feel the same way, even more so. We spend as much time following American politics as we do following our own, you know, Rupert Murdoch's, uh, subscription television service here used to be called Sky News. Now it's called News 24 is effectively a local version of Fox now. And so you get, there's a globalization of this sort of, uh, populism. These culture wars have gone global and they, they, you know, cross infect, particularly through the English speaking world. [00:14:21] Speaker 2: But they seem to be less successful outside the United States than they are inside the United States, at least from an electoral politics point of view. [00:14:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, well, I mean, you know, my friend Mark Carney, uh, uh, what one, you know, came, I mean, did a, did a Lazarus. John Howard would have said Lazarus with a triple bypass, uh, resurrection of Canada's liberal party, which of course is Canada's center left party. Uh, by campaigning against Trump and, uh, you know, the Trump being Trumpy has not been a, uh, an assistance assistance here, but nonetheless, the, uh, you know, the, you know, we, there are these, these anti-science forces, these, this sort of algorithmic cultivation of hatred and negativity. That we're seeing now more than ever is a challenge that I think has, it's infected both sides of politics, but I think it's done more damage, uh, to the, to the sensible, right. And, uh, you know, look, let, let, let me give you a theory of the case as a, someone who's led a center right party, my view grounded in my own experience and observation of others. Is that the center rights, uh, political equity is economic management. You know, the left will generally be regarded as being more likely to do, you know, good things with health, even with education, you know, with spending, the left will always be regarded as being more likely to spend more. So, and the right is often in most countries regarded as being better bet on national security, but that's rarely an election issue. Sometimes it is, but the, the economy obviously always is. Now, my attitude is that the more you get sidetracked down these culture war issues, the more you lose, uh, you know, that the time, the attention on the one political equity you've got. And that's, uh, economic management. So, you know, jobs and growth is, uh, is what center right politicians should be focused on. [00:16:35] Speaker 2: But center right politicians often nowadays seem to have lost interest in those issues. The economic management of the second Trump term, um, has, has careened from, uh, higher tariffs, uh, lower, lower growth, lower employment, higher inflation. Um, he's paying, he's paying, he's at last paying a political price for it. Other, other center right parties around the world seem to be interested in talking about immigration issues, issues of sexuality, race, um, of, uh, uh, ethnic, uh, transition. That's what gets the activists excited. That's what the leaders respond to and economic management goes out the window. [00:17:10] Speaker 1: Well, that's all of that's true. But let me, let me just unpack a bit of that. I mean, the first thing you've got to remember about politics is that it's a relative business. You know, it's, you know, it's like football, uh, you, you're, you, you, you may be playing in a team that is absolutely hopeless, you know, can't catch, can't kick, terrible. Uh, but if the people you play on the weekend are even more hopeless than you, you'll win. Now, you know, the, the Democrats in the last election in the United States gave it to Trump. They gave it to him. I mean, their failure to secure the Southern border alone was just an extraordinary abdication of responsibility. Uh, you know, one of the fundamental things that people express is respect for their government is that the government should be able to determine who goes in and out of their country. Now, if you can't do that, you're failing in a very basic responsibility. And, you know, I think if, you know, you're, you're a better assessor of this than me, David, but I would think if that had been properly addressed, I suspect, even with all the other problems they had, Trump wouldn't have been successful. Um, the other thing to remember too, in Australia is a little bit different. Uh, we have compulsory voting, which means you, you have to, everyone has to turn up to the polling place, uh, and take a ballot paper. They can, you know, write a rude word on it or, you know, not number all the squares and cast an informal vote if they like, but we get up over 90% of people turning up to vote and a 97 and a half percent of every eligible Australian is on the roll. So now this means that you don't have to run or if you run off to the right to fire up your, you know, craziest activists or the left for that matter, uh, that's not, you know, to get them out to vote in, when you do that in the U S and many other places, uh, that, that may be a legitimate strategy here. There's no point because they got, they're going to vote anyway. So the, the electoral contest is focused at the center, which is where it should be. [00:19:24] Speaker 2: Well, Australia is one of the most outward facing economies in the world. You're one of the most urban societies in the world. So it's not going to work in Australia to say, let's put up a big fence around the country and keep out trade with everybody else way Americans may falsely imagine it's plausible in the United States. So when Australians turn against the rest of the world, or when, um, leaders invite them, political entrepreneurs invite them to turn against the rest of the world, how does that resonate in a country that says we, we can't make a living if we're not connected to the rest of the world? [00:19:54] Speaker 1: Well, well, I mean, protectionism has never had a good, you know, not in modern times anyway, has had a, has never had a good, uh, degree of political support here. Um, Australia, you know, generally Australians understand free trade, uh, is good. Now, you know, obviously the attitudes were different years ago. There were, you know, decades, many decades ago, there was protectionism, but I think all of us pretty much in Australia, um, united in, uh, supporting free trade. I mean, clearly you've got a fair trade. I mean, and we do have laws that deal with dumping and so forth. But generally, uh, our barrier, you know, Australia is our barriers to trade, whether it's tariffs are vanishingly small. Um, we have free trade, many free trade agreements. I mean, we kept, we kept, I mean, my government kept the Trans-Pacific Partnership alive after Trump pulled out, for example, and, uh, working with Shinzo Abe in particular, uh, to do that. So, you know, we're free trade is good for us, but, but I can understand the case they make in the US. Now, you made a very good point. If I could just pick up on this, because I think it's a really important one, particularly for an American audience and Canadian audience. You made the point that, um, Australia is very urbanized and that's true. We absolutely are. Uh, we always have been, by the way. Um, now, if most of your population live in big cities, you do have some natural protections against, um, circumstances where a factory closes or an industry declines. Versus a, uh, society where you have towns and cities, which are dominated by one industry or one company. And so, cause if you're in a big city, if you're the plant or the business you're working in fails, that's very sad. People lose their job, but there's lots of other businesses. Typically, you know, you've got more options. If you're in a company town and the company fails, what do you do? And so that sort of a rust belt phenomenon that you, uh, see in the United States that has caused so much of the alienation and unhappiness. And I think provided a lot of the groundswell for MAGA, uh, that is not present in Australia to anything like the same extent. [00:22:23] Speaker 2: You've remained very active, or at least very vocal in Australian politics as a voice for, um, moderate conservatism, um, since the end of your prime ministership. And you've gotten a lot of blowback for that. One of the things, as I read the commentary in Australian media, and again, I'll take your warning, but beware of the media. Um, is that the, the people say. [00:22:43] Speaker 1: I'm an old journalist, by the way. [00:22:46] Speaker 2: Well, then you, then you know what you're talking of. People will say this, this new kind of politics is more authoritarian, this more status, this more xenophobic, this more cultural reactionary politics. We are the wave of the future. And you speaking for, um, openness and enterprise and environmental responsibility and cultural modernism. That's the past. That's, that's out of date. We're the new style. And I don't know if it's true in Australia, but certainly I notice in the United States, the younger conservatives are the most reactionary. Um, you, you have to talk to people who are quite old, uh, to find people who, who have a good word to say for more moderate views. You, the young are more extreme. Um, and, uh, do we confront here something where this is the wave of the future? This is what the politics of the future will look like for ill, for good or for ill. [00:23:32] Speaker 1: Look, America's different, right? It is, it is exceptional. It's, uh, so big, uh, and, uh, and, and, and diverse, of course. I think if you declare war on multiculturalism, if you like, which is, you know, there is a populist leader here, Pauline Hanson, who's endeavouring to do that. And one of my liberal predecessors, Tony Abbott, who was always much to the right of me in the Liberal Party, um, you know, has been recently saying multiculturalism has failed and talking about Australia being a monoculture. Well, that's nonsense, right? I mean, you know, you've got about a, um, 30% of all the people in Australia, resident in Australia, uh, were born overseas. So, you know, we are a multicultural society. Our political identity is defined by adherence to a set of values, not by the colour of your skin or your ethnicity or your religion. And those people who try to take us back to a sort of, I mean, you know, Christian nationalists, for example, Christian nationalists are not Christian, right? There's nothing Christian about that. And the, the people that are trying to, in a multicultural society like Australia or the United States to define the country as being, you know, of a particular race, you know, white, you know, for example, if their opponents are effective in their advocacy, they will be successful. Because you're asking people to, you know, in effect, reject the society in which they live, the reality in which they live. [00:25:16] Speaker 2: And yet, as you say, that they're calling on people to reject reality, that you're suggesting it's kind of a backward looking kind of politics. And yet, your critics would say, and my observation here of the way Republican politics works, just that it's not backward looking. This is a glimpse of what's to come for good or for ill. [00:25:36] Speaker 1: Let's hope it's not. We'll be a poorer, meaner world. If we abandon love, if we abandon, you know, our, you know, our commitment to all of our fellow citizens. You know, the, I mean, politicians that get to the top by dividing their country may be successful for a while, but they ultimately leave their country much worse off. [00:26:01] Speaker 2: It's 11 years since the start of your prime ministership. And it's a different, the world has changed in many ways. As you evaluate the strength of, I don't know what we call this alliance of nations. Their geography, calling them Western sort of doesn't quite work because many of the most important allies are on the opposite side of the world from the United States and the European Union and Canada and Great Britain. But this coalition of nations, the United, led by the United States, that includes Australia, is one of the most militarily capable, includes Japan, has new and more complex relationships with India and Indonesia and even Vietnam. How do you do the balance sheet of the strength and cohesion of that group of nations facing China a decade ago or 11 years ago as compared to now? [00:26:49] Speaker 1: Well, the United States, not by accident or circumstance, but by design, has become a less dependable ally. The United States, which at least used to claim that its international actions, the exertion of its power across the world was to support democracy, to support democratic values, American values, you might say, now doesn't, no longer does that. The Trump says might is right. You know, Stephen Miller was, you know, channeling Thucydides' Melian dialogue, saying, you know, the strong always doers can always do what they want. We're a great power. Trump, you know, Trump makes this very clear. This is, again, there's no bones about this. So, so naturally, America's allies are hedging. And I mean, I mean, America still has a, there is an enormous amount of goodwill. It's not even, I think it would be impossible even for Donald Trump to, you know, torch all of the goodwill there is for the United States from, from its allies and friends. Because as we know, and I mean, you understand this very well as a Canadian, I mean, the, the pressure, the abuse, the threats that the United States has thrown at Canada is unbelievable. The stuff, I mean, if someone had put it in a, if you'd written a political novel about an American president doing the things and saying the things about Canada that Donald Trump has had, it would have been regarded as a fantasy. [00:28:38] Speaker 2: And a farce, because of all, if the president's going to vent his venom, Canada seems like the least plausible. It doesn't even seem like, that seems like a, a too crude a joke for a kind of cheap comedy movie, not an expensive one. You'd make them choose Venezuela or somebody, somebody more plausible. I mean, Canada, it's not interesting, but as you say, it's happened. [00:28:59] Speaker 1: I know. It's like joking Australia declares war on New Zealand or, you know, something like that. [00:29:04] Speaker 2: But, but you talked about the reservoir of goodwill. I mean, in Canada and Australia and Great Britain and the countries liberated during World War II, there is, there's a profound level of goodwill. And as you say, it's, it's not so easily exhausted. That's not true in Vietnam. That's not true in Indonesia. That's not true in, in India. I don't think it's true in the Philippines, although the relationship has some warmth to it. These are much more transactional relationships. If might makes right, how mighty is the United States in 2026 compared to how mighty it was in 2015? [00:29:34] Speaker 1: Well, certainly less mighty relative to China. That's clear. And that's because of the enormous growth in China's economic and military might. The relative position of the US and China has changed. And that, that would have happened whether Trump was president or not. But I think what, what Trump has done is unsettled so many friends and allies and of course, countries that are not as close. And you named a few to the US as Australia and Canada and the Western Europeans have been. And of course, with this, you know, very misguided conflict with Iran, he is, you know, he's demonstrated the limits of power and of course, reminded all of those allies in the Gulf that having those American bases there have made them targets for Iran rather than protecting them from Iran. [00:30:29] Speaker 2: Because when you go through the things that make the United States mighty, Donald Trump chose this war with Iran. And I think by any measure, he's lost that. I mean, he did a lot of damage, I'm sure, to Iranian capabilities. But Iran is emerging from the situation as the formal and soon to be recognized owner of the Persian Gulf, recognized even by the United States. Iran is going to be tolling shipping in the Persian Gulf. Having lost this war, what does that do to American power in the Pacific? [00:30:57] Speaker 1: It clearly undermined the standing of the United States in the world. I mean, the inability of the United States to succeed in this conflict with Iran, you know, is remarkable. I mean, who would have imagined? Look, the Strait of Hormuz has, the Iranians have threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz for years. I remember in 1979 when Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini took over, there was speculation and threats about this happening then. But it had remained open for all of those years. But look, can I just say this, David, and let me say something in praise of Mark Carney. The views he expressed in the speech in Davos about middle powers, and I know people are skeptical about that, exactly the same points I've been making. And similar points to what I made when I was Prime Minister. I used to talk a lot about sovereign autonomy then, too. But, you know, different world. The reality is that we have to accept the world as it is. You know, we all have a stake in what happens in Washington, but only the Americans have a vote. And so in this world, in this environment, America's, all countries, but particularly America's traditional allies, have got to hedge. They've got to do more together, they've got to be more self-reliant. And I think, to be frank, I think we are better allies if we are franker with the United States, if we are more self-reliant, and if we are less dependent on them. I mean, I thought it was very interesting, you know, and I've cited this and things I've written elsewhere, that J.D. Vance last year spoke about how much he admired Charles de Gaulle for insisting on the maintenance of French sovereignty in the 1960s, 1950s and 60s, and in particular on maintaining French control of France's nuclear deterrent. Now, you know, you could imagine, as he was saying this, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson were, you know, disturbed because, you know, De Gaulle had given them a lot of grief. But I think this is the, you know, this is where we've got to be careful about letting emotions and resentments get in the way. I mean, our relations with the U.S., ours, Australia's, Canada's, go well beyond the personalities of one president or one prime minister or, you know, they're so deep. And so, and I believe enduring. But I think the message from all of this is that we just, that the sycophancy has to stop. We have to be more self-reliant. We have to be franker with the U.S. And we have to no longer think of the United States as the leader of the free world. It's the largest and most powerful democracy. Obviously, India has got a greater population. But we really have to chart our own futures and do so, recognising that our interests may not always be coextensive with that of the U.S. We used to assume that we had shared values and, by and large, shared interests. We're now in a situation where we cannot honestly say our political values are shared, at least by this administration, entirely, and our interests very often are not, too. [00:34:44] Speaker 2: You wisely caution against letting emotion dictate policy. And you mentioned emotions of resentment and injury and insult, which are very real. And again, from a Canadian point of view, very real. Australian, too. But nostalgia is an emotion. Outdated fondness is an emotion. Outworn respect is an emotion. That may be one of the things that countries, middle powers that are going to be less emotional is to say, look, the United States elected Trump twice. In between was Biden, who was more globally minded, but who also was almost as protectionist as Donald Trump. And, and, and, and failed the test of leadership on issues like, like Ukraine. I mean, he, Biden always seemed, his approach seemed to be find out what the Ukrainians need, send them half. And hope that, and hope that, and hope that, and hope that that placates the friends of Ukraine without irritating the Russians too much. Under Biden, the United States strategic position vis-a-vis China also deteriorated. Biden did not revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is a signal not just to Australia, but, and not just to Japan, but again, to those more transactional partners like Vietnam and Indonesia. So it's been 10 years, worse under Trump, not so good under Biden, happened twice, and any ally calculus, look, you could forgive Trump one, but Biden two, and then Trump two, this looks like a pattern, and a pattern you have to plan for. [00:36:10] Speaker 1: David, you're absolutely right, people who think that at the end of Trump's current term, there will be a resumption to normal transmission, overlook the fact that the new normal is more or less what we have at the moment, and is a much more self-interested United States, a more protectionist United States. You know, and a United States that is, you know, not committed to the democratic values that we've shared in the same way, you know, presidents of both stripes had been in years past. [00:36:50] Speaker 2: And the United States said if it cannot beat Iran, probably cannot defend Taiwan. [00:36:54] Speaker 1: Look, you know, you don't have to take my word for it. Donald Trump has said that, more or less, that he gave an interview to Bloomberg, I think, in 2024, in which he raised real doubts about whether it was possible. Think about a naval war in the Pacific, right? If you have a naval, that China has 200 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States. In a naval war, let's say it ends up, let's say, you know, it ends up at a stalemate or, you know, Taiwan remains autonomous. And so the Chinese haven't achieved their objective. But there will be a lot of warships sunk on both sides, obviously, that that's what happens. Which Navy will be rebuilt sooner? I mean, isn't it staggering that so much of the, you know, munitions magazines, magazine depth of the United States, you know, it's been it's been depleted so considerably from this conflict with Iran, which is not a conflict with a peer counterparty, like rival like China, or Russia, for that matter. You know, for all of the talk and confidence about American military power, it raises very, very real concerns. And of course, you're seeing them raised in the United States. This is one of the reasons I've been a critic of the AUKUS arrangement. Not it's not being anti-American at all. My concern is that it's a really bad deal for Australia. And we'll end up with with very little out of it. [00:38:35] Speaker 2: AUKUS is an acronym for Australia, UK, US. [00:38:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a deal to acquire, you know, nuclear powered submarines, enable nuclear propulsion. But the all of it depends on, you know, the US industrial base, the British industrial base, both of which are under enormous pressure and underperforming. And it's a very, I think, very foolish sacrifice of Australian sovereignty. You know, again, you can be a sceptic about the middle power thesis of Mark Carney. Right. But what's the alternative? What is the alternative just to be a sycophantic cork bobbing along behind the United States as it weaves from one, you know, perceived act of self-interest to another? The only alternative, difficult and complex and compromised, though it may be, is to be more self-reliant and to work with other nations that have similar interests. Hence the middle power thesis. [00:39:42] Speaker 2: Let me ask you about one last strategic question, which Americans tend not to think of as a strategic question, and that is the issue of corruption. We are seeing in the second Trump administration, the first Trump administration was the most corrupt administration in American history and by far. But it was still visibly within the American tradition. Corrupt millions of dollars, you know, money going, single millions, maybe even tens of millions of dollars flowing where it shouldn't flow. But that's, that's, that is not unthinkable in the American context. What has happened in the second Trump term is nothing like anything in American history. It's nothing like the history in any democratic country. It can only be compared to a post-Soviet republic or post-colonial Africa. Australia has many very strict rules about campaign finance. It's a very clean country. As you view the United States as it is today, isn't, how does it affect your strategic thinking to say the government of the United States seems to be auctioning itself off to secretive parties all over the world for, in transactions that are not very legible, but that are highly suspicious. And that seemed to be happening in front of all of our, all of our, all of our eyes. [00:40:52] Speaker 1: Well, it's a, it's a, it's a, all of this is a matter of, uh, is a, is a matter of real concern. Um, it's a, obviously it's a concern to Americans. Um, I was at a meeting recently with a, uh, in the States, uh, with a group of senior leaders from European companies for the most part. Um, and their big concern was that after the Trump administration, there would be a reckoning and that there would be, you know, there, there would be people who do engage in corrupt activities, uh, will be brought to account. So it's something that everyone has to, you know, has, has to think about. I mean, the, were they frightened of that or were they hoping for that? They were, they were very apprehensive, very apprehensive about that. And I thought that was a good thing because, you know, the, the, uh, you know, the one part of the American, of American democracy that appears to have been, you know, reasonably resilient is the justice system. Because, you know, uh, because, you know, at the end of the day, probably the most important element in a democracy is the rule of law. A democracy that was just all about the majority getting to run the government, uh, is not much of a democracy because the majority can win the government and then, you know, bump off the minority. So the rule of law is absolutely fundamental. It's fundamental to, and I think Americans understand that and this, this perceived assault and affront to the rule of law, that will be the part of this era that is going to see, I think, the biggest, um, I don't know, reckoning, uh, when, you know, when it comes to an end. At least I hope so, I hope so, because that's, because ultimately, if you don't have the rule of law, you don't have trust, the rule of law and the trust that that brings is absolutely fundamental to the American economy and every modern economy. You degrade that, uh, and you're shooting yourself in the foot, leaving aside all of the moral, moral and ethical issues. [00:43:12] Speaker 2: You may be giving the United States legal system a bigger compliment than it deserves, um, that, or maybe we need to disaggregate a little bit. I mean, it is, seems to be true that the courts, the federal courts won't convict innocent people. And when they, uh, when they see a blatantly unconstitutional action, like the president of the United States imposing tariffs, um, unilaterally without the consent of Congress and clear violation of the text of the constitution, which awards powers over tariffs and taxes to Congress, the courts will stop that. But we're seeing something else. Uh, I, when I, I wrote about the Trump presidents at the beginning and quoted, um, a line I had heard on a visit to Hungary, uh, Victor Orban's Hungary in 2016, the most important or the most dangerous power in a modern bureaucratic state where there are limits on what the government can do is not that the courts are not that the justice system is abused, um, to punish the innocent, but the justice system is used to protect the guilty. And that does seem to be happening here. And it turns out, no, that's not true. Uh, the system is, yes, you can't send innocent people to prison so far, although there are innocent people who have been shot dead in the streets by agents of the state with no consequences. So, so, so far to agents of the state. But we are seeing extraordinary things happen that most Americans would have supposed the president and his government can't do, and they do it, and the courts can't do anything. And the department of justice won't do anything. [00:44:34] Speaker 1: Well, I mean, David, I'm not, I'm not arguing with you, but I mean, I'm just, I guess, I mean, it's not a great, it's not a good state of affairs, that's for sure. Uh, but, but the, but, but to my relief, and I imagine to your relief too, uh, the courts have, you know, remained for the most part, uh, you know, including judges that have been appointed by, you know, Republican and Trump administrations, uh, have remained, uh, remained, uh, resistant to, uh, you know, what they see as abuses of power. There's a, there's so much wrong with the design of the American democracy. I mean, the electoral system, the gerrymandering, you know, the politicization of the judiciary. You know, again, there's not, you know, Americans don't want to hear foreigners telling them what's wrong with their country. But look at the electoral system, look at the way, uh, you've got a two party system entrenched, it's virtually impossible for independence to succeed. Uh, you've got voluntary voting, you've got a political culture that seems to say at least for part of the, for the, you know, part of the polity that it's okay to discourage people from voting. It's not made easy for people to vote. Uh, so, and, and, and then you have districts gerrymandered quite deliberately, uh, so as to ensure that only one party or the other can win. And then surprise, surprise, the only contest that matters is the primary and surprise, surprise, you people on the democratic side, win the primary by pivoting to the left and on the republican side by pivoting to the right or to Trump. And, and then the, so the general election doesn't really matter other than in a handful of districts. And you, so you end up with a Congress that is more poll, much more polarized than the country. Right? I mean, whereas what is the point of a parliament? The whole point of a parliament is to bring people together so that they compromise in the center. That's the whole point. Otherwise we'd just elect a dictator, you know, for, for four years or 10 years or something, you wouldn't bother having a parliament. I mean, the, the, the polarization driven by the electoral system, uh, is actually defeating the very purpose of having a parliamentary system in the first place. [00:46:58] Speaker 2: When you view the world from your region, do you, do you, does America seem as present to you as it did 10 years ago or does the United States feel farther away and that other places feel bigger and more important from an Australian point of view? Is India closer to China closer, Vietnam closer than it was more interesting, more exciting, more important, more inescapable? [00:47:21] Speaker 1: Well, economically, India and China are vastly more important than they were 10 or 20 years ago. Uh, certainly 20 years ago, vastly more important. However, in terms of, uh, attention, in terms of, you know, share of mind, the United States is occupying almost everything. It's almost impossible to, um, to, uh, not be talking about us politics. I think Australians pay, uh, as much, if not more attention to US politics than they do to their, our own politics. It's, and, and I'm, I can only imagine that it's even more so in Canada. It is, uh, you know, the, the, the globalized media, um, is, you know, we're an example of it, uh, has meant that the US is dominating everybody's attention. It's like, it's sucking all the oxygen out of everywhere else. And of course it creates a disadvantage competitively because China has become a much less open society in the last decade or so. And so the one thing, you know, is that Chinese leaders understand a lot more about how America works, a lot more than American leaders understand about how China works. [00:48:47] Speaker 2: And they can do it both by open source and by clandestine means of which there are, it seems to be more and more. [00:48:53] Speaker 1: Everyone can use clandestine means. I mean, there's, there's everyone, uh, everyone, uh, gets up to that sort of stuff. That's, you know, hardly, hardly unique. Uh, but America is so open, uh, that you can, and you know, that openness is a, is a strength that one, it's, it is a strength, I think. Um, who are we to decry free speech and openness, but, but what it does mean is that America dominates, uh, the world's attention much more than it did a decade, let alone two decades ago. [00:49:25] Speaker 2: As, as you travel around your region, uh, do, do people still take at all seriously, um, the ideals of America or does it seem now kind of bitter mockery? And when, when the United States has just marked its 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, of those words that once seemed so resonant, does that echo? Does that still have power? Or in Vietnam, in Indonesia, even in Australia, do people say, maybe that's who you were, but it's not who you are? Or do they still, does any of that confidence in what America used to be still linger in the America of today? [00:50:03] Speaker 1: Look, uh, the, everybody can distinguish between America and the American president or government for the time being. You know, there is a, the America is not defined by its president. I think the American ideals are resonant because they are human ideals, you know, freedom, equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I mean, who, I mean, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed, uh, the values of the Declaration of Independence when he, um, you know, declared, uh, you know, Vietnam independent after the second world war. And, you know, he was hardly a, uh, hardly a capitalist to say the least. Um, so these values have been inspiring for, well, for 250 years, let's face it. Um, so I think they'll remain inspiring, but I think the confidence in the United States to live up to them and to deliver on them has been, has been undermined. I mean, people have always been cynical. People have always said, oh, the Americans talk about, you know, freedom and justice and democracy, but they're really in it for themselves. Well, Donald Trump, who is in many ways, refreshingly honest, makes it very clear that he, this is all about American self-interest. You know, that's his slogan, America first. So he makes no bones about that and the, but, but what that does mean is that people have to hedge. They have to make their own arrangements. They have, if they're wise, not everyone is doing that. I don't think Australia is doing enough, frankly. But if they're wise, they should be seeking, uh, to be more independent, more self-reliant and at, and, you know, whether America returns to a, you know, a more conventional keel, if you like, uh, than it is on at the moment or not. I think we are all better friends of America, uh, you know, writ large if we are more independent. I, I, I, I, I, my, you know, my sincere conviction, born not just out of observation, but out of real experience. Is that you are a, as a foreign leader, you are a better friend to America. If you tell the truth and a worse friend, if you just join the line of back slappers and sycophants. [00:52:42] Speaker 2: Malcolm Turnbull. Thank you so much for joining me today on the David Fromm show. [00:52:45] Speaker 1: Thanks, David. [00:52:46] Speaker ?: Bye-bye. [00:52:52] Speaker 2: Thanks so much to Malcolm Turnbull for joining me today on the David Fromm show. As I said at the top of the show, this week's book is "Red Dawn Over China: How Communism Conquered a Quarter of Humanity." Victor Cotter is a great historian of modern China, the author of three previous books about the harrowing consequences of Mao Zedong's rule over China: Mao's Great Famine, the Tragedy of Liberation, and the Cultural Revolution. That trilogy starts in 1945 and describes in, in detail, the cost, the human cost, of Mao Zedong's grim rule over the Chinese, over the Chinese. This new book, "Red Dawn Over China," is a kind of prequel. It starts before 1945 and tells the story of the rise of the Chinese Communist Party to power in 1949. De Cotter thinks there's been a longtime myth that the Chinese Communist Party's ascent represented some kind of popular revolution, some kind of mandate of the people. That is the thesis that De Cotter brutally takes apart in "Red Dawn Over China." What he wants to show is that the Communist Party was a marginal force in Chinese life. He estimates that in 1940, the party had maybe 40,000 members in a country of half a billion people, or about one member per 1,700 people. The Communist Party came to power in China, not through a popular will, not through a popular uprising, but through a brutal campaign of terroristic violence that is largely supported by foreign efforts, that is, by the flow of money and arms from Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. The story, at the center of the story is the consequence of the Japanese invasion of China, they attacked Manchuria in 1931 and then attacked the mainland of China, the rest of China in 1937. The Chinese Nationalists, who are often presented as the villains of the story, defend the integrity of China against the foreign invaders and pay a stupendous price in human, in lives and equipment to defeat, to hold back the Japanese and ultimately to be there when the Japanese are defeated by the American and allied war against Japan. This war leaves China in ruins, leaves the Chinese Nationalists bankrupt, leaves their army broken. And the Communists are in a position now to take over Manchuria, the former Japanese center of power, adjacent to the Soviet Union, supplied by the Soviet Union, armed by the Soviet Union, paid for by the Soviet Union, and then to invade the South from the North, backed by the Soviets the whole way. Ducata makes the important point that at every stage of this conflict, whenever there was a flow of refugees, it was always a flow from the Communist areas to the Nationalist areas, never the other way around. And when they seized, when the Communists at last did seize power in 1949, there was a result, not of their superior integrity, not of their superior morality, not because their army, their arms were less corrupt, all the stories you've heard, it was just because they had more and better weapons provided by a more generous ally. And they had less of the, uh, they had to do less for the population than the Nationals who took more seriously than the Communists, their obligations to everyday Chinese people. It's the story, as he says, of conquest, how China, communism conquered a quarter of humanity. And as we try to make sense of the kind of regime China has become, uh, the China regime, kind of regime that China now is, we need to always keep in mind the lesson that is taught by this book and de Carter's, uh, previous books. This is a regime that rests on force, on violence and on conquest, and in no way represents the aspirations of the people it governs and misgoverns. That's it for this week's David Frum show. Thanks so much for joining. Um, I hope you will consider subscribing to the Atlantic. That's the best way to support the work of this program and of all of us at the Atlantic. And please share and subscribe to the, please subscribe to the program and share it on whatever social media you use. That helps to bring the program to the attention of more people. Thanks for joining me this week. See you next week. Bye-bye. [00:56:57] Speaker ?: you