Dr Suter said the US withdrawal from international agreements will increase turbulence in a fragile global economy.
Australia has an opportunity to target US consumers with its clean, green produce in the wake of US agricultural chaos caused by widespread reductions in frontline food inspectors.
US food safety experts have spoken out against the staff cutbacks, saying it is damaging the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to safeguard the country’s food supply.
According to global and economic futurist Dr Keith Suter, Global Directions, the rollback of public health protections in the US opens an opportunity for Australia to promote its clean, green and safe produce to the US market.
Dr Suter was a keynote speaker at the Pasture Agronomy Service Conference at Gundagai on March 10, outlining the policies of US President Donald Trump and the implications for Australia.
Dr Suter said Trump 2.0 was very different from Trump 1.0 with his government practicing social Darwinism, or survival of the fittest, and largely based around the 1000-page document, Project 2025, an authoritarian Christian nationalist initiative to reshape the US federal government.
Trump is pushing forward with his economic agenda to rebuild the US industry behind tariff walls, withdraw from international agreements, dismantle the administrative state, reduce taxation on corporations and expand the nation’s geographical footprint via the acquisition of Canada, Panama Canal and Greenland.
Dr Suter was concerned the pursuit of “trickle down” economics in the US to protect corporates and high nett wealth individuals from high taxation rates, would be copied in Australia and exacerbate social tensions by widening the rich-poor gap.
“Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency are causing chaos in the US bureaucracy by reducing its impact internationally,” he said.
“US consumers will begin to doubt the standards of agricultural purity as they are cutting back on their food inspectors, resulting in an opportunity for Australia to promote its produce as clean and green.”
Dr Suter said the US withdrawal from international agreements will increase turbulence in a fragile global economy.
“It will delay progress on climate change negotiations and create an erosion of the rules-based order, or everybody out for themselves,” he said.
“Trump is returning to the 1930s when tariffs accidentally extended the impact of the Great Depression. The American consumers will end up paying for those tariffs through increased cost of living, not China.”
With the US importing less Chinese goods, there will be a flow on effect to Australia with less raw materials imported by China to produce goods for the US market.
“Australia relies on international trade and needs a free trade system, not a tariff war,” Dr Suter said.
He pointed to implications for the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) defence agreement with China potentially filling the power vacuum left by the reduced US role in international affairs.
“How can we rely on the United States when it is willing to throw its own long term allay, Ukraine, under the bus? These are real implications for the future of Australia’s defence.
“We need to think about acquiring more defence weapons ourselves while the Europeans are reopening the debate over whether they should acquire nuclear weapons. That has been a very bad development.
“Trump does not like war; he did not start any new wars in his first term and negotiated with the Taliban (over the heads of the Afghan government) for the US retreat from Afghanistan, which was eventually handled by President Biden.
“He is siding with Russia against Ukraine to end the stalemate – for the last 80 years the US has been the leader of the western world and Trump is now trying to get out of that role to return to a policy of isolationism where the US is not involved in so many international incidents.
“The US is alienating its allies and will waste time and effort on a potentially failed mission to expand its geographic footprint. We are going to have a very challenging next four years as who knows where we will be in the long term.”