Last week Donald Trump gave America\u2019s Asian allies yet another reason to wonder about the future of America\u2019s role in the region. By nonchalantly slashing a key annual exercise with South Korea he made it clearer than ever how little he cares about the strategic interests and perceptions of countries that America is supposedly committed to defend.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Penny Wong coyly alluded to this in her Allan Gyngell Lecture (Opens in new window)<\/a> to the Lowy Institute this month. In a characteristic understatement, Wong said, \u201cWe have always understood that President Trump envisages a different role for the United States in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n What she said next is important. \u201cEven so,\u201d she said, \u201cthe United States remains the world\u2019s largest economic and military power, with daily influence over international events that have consequences for every nation, including Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n Her message is clear. Donald Trump is an aberration, and when he passes from the scene things will return to the way they used to be, with America as committed and as capable as ever of ensuring Asia\u2019s stability and Australia\u2019s security.<\/p>\n That is a big mistake, because it both underestimates and overestimates Trump. It underestimates what he means for US domestic politics. And it overestimates what he means for America\u2019s changing role in the world and in Asia.<\/p>\n Trump has not dominated and transformed American politics through his own strange and remarkable capacities. He has been enabled by deep flaws in the US political system, especially in the two great parties at its core.<\/p>\n The old Republican Party has collapsed under Trump\u2019s assault, and now stands for whatever Trump says it stands for. In 2028, even if Trump does not find a way to run himself, he will in effect decide the party\u2019s candidate, and JD Vance is considered the favourite (Opens in new window)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week Donald Trump gave America\u2019s Asian allies yet another reason to wonder about the future of America\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-823908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}