We’re so often told that domestic and foreign policy are entirely separate things. That our alliance with the US is “above” presidents and prime ministers, and sometimes, above politics altogether.

As Amy reported this morning, just last night the Australian Foreign Minister got stuck in to the Coalition because they “always seek to create domestic politics in circumstances where you really need to be adult and mature and navigate a diplomatic relationship.”

Tell that to President Trump, who’s busy projecting his hateful domestic politics out into the world. Today, the US Olympic Committee has effectively banned trans women from participation in Olympic sports, in direct response to a Trump Executive Order.

That’s going to highlight some big questions facing progressive governments across the world – how can they, in good faith, send trans and non-binary athletes to the LA Olympics in 2028, when their safety might be at risk?

And of course it’s not just trans people who might be in danger. Athletes have already been denied entry into the US because of Trump’s travel bans, and there are big questions about not just the Olympics but the FIFA World Cup too, which the US is hosting next year. Athletes, national sports bodies and spectators are going to have to weigh up some serious risks to their safety versus participating in those global competitions. A bunch of countries are already issuing travel advisories to trans and non-binary people.

If you want to read more about this issue, I had a chat to the ABC about it last week. 

This is all happening as part of the Trump administration’s radical approach to gender more broadly. At the same time as the administration is attacking and undermining trans rights, it’s reminding women where it thinks they belong. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth just removed the first woman to head the US Naval Academy and replaced her with a man. Hegseth is, in the words of Tom Nichols over at The Atlantic (not exactly a radical himself) “on a mission to erase women from the top ranks of the U.S. armed forces.” 

These are just more examples of how, no matter how much we might want to, we can’t draw lines between what happens inside the US and what it does in the world.