Trump’s proposal for the US to “own” Gaza and force out the Palestinian population would make it American policy to support “a crime against humanity”, says US foreign policy expert, Matt Duss.

On this episode of After America, Matt Duss, Executive Vice-President at the Washington DC-based Center for International Policy, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss Trump’s Gaza announcement, the freeze on US development funding, and the new Cabinet’s approach to China.

Find it the full discussion via the link or wherever you get your podcasts.

The federal government is being urged to adopt ‘real zero’ emissions targets instead of net zero frameworks that allow accounting tricks and increased fossil fuels. 

Prominent business leaders, investors and community members have added their name to an open letter to Members of Parliament calling on them to stop undermining decarbonisation efforts with fossil fuel subsidies and carbon offsets.

They warn Australian businesses are falling behind, and have urged the government to stop favouring fossil fuel companies and create policy that will channel investment into renewable energy and decarbonisation.

Signatories include Fortescue Chair Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, Simon Sheikh CEO, Future Super, Dino Otranto CEO, Fortescue Metals, Nick J. Fairfax Managing Director and Co-CIO, Marinya Capital, Ian Melrose Co-Owner, Optical Superstore, Mark Barnaba Chairman, Greatland Gold PLC, Former Board Member of the Reserve Bank of Australia

And no, it doesn’t seem that Donald Trump’s horrendous comments on ‘taking over’ Gaza (and ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people by the forced removal to surrounding states) came up in the Albanese-Trump phone call.

Albanese:

I’ve outlined very clearly, we haven’t changed our position. I’ll speak about what Australia’s position is. We support two states, the right of Palestinians and Israelis, to both live in peace and security with prosperity.

Anthony Albanese is in a good mood at this press conference, which means that he thinks the phone call did go well.

Albanese:

If you have a look at what we’ve achieved already, it’s been a tremendous start to the relationship. Penny Wong being invited to the inauguration. Richard Marles sitting down with the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, just on the weekend.

This is one of President Trump’s first calls that he’s had with world leaders as well. It was one of the first calls that was had between leaders after his election victory as well. The relationship is in good shape.

But don’t expect much push back against the Trump administration from this government:

The words that I’ve used are the words that I’ll stick to. It’s appropriate, when you’re dealing with the President of the United States, to not speak on his behalf. They are the words that are agreed. They’re the words that I’ll stick to. And I can say, though, that it was a very positive and constructive discussion.

Oh and everyone loves Aukus.

I’ve indicated there’s very positive support for the AUKUS relationship. I have no intention of speaking on behalf of President Trump – that is up to him – but, quite clearly, I’ve indicated there’s strong bipartisan support for AUKUS in Australia and in the United States.

Of course, football was part of the conversation, because this is male-driven politics.

Anthony Albanese:

My government’s got a record of getting things done in Australia’s national interest.

I’ll continue to do so. I’ve made very explicit – I said to President Trump that this was an issue of some media coverage in Australia, and that we therefore agreed on the words that would be used – that it was “under consideration”. That’s what I’ll stick to.

But we’ll continue to engage – quite clearly constructively. But I’ll say this – it was a very constructive and warm discussion, again, with President Trump. We spoke about a range of other things as well, including the fact that Jordan Mailata is a Super Bowl champion, and I did point out that he was a South Sydney junior.

It was very important – and we had – it was very constructive, the discussion.

The prime minister has started his press conference by laying out how much trade occurs between Australia and the United States and says there will be “a summit taking place on the 24th and 25th of February in Washington DC at our Embassy” which Donald Trump has confirmed senior US officials will attend.

On the tariffs, Albanese says he pushed Australia’s position and the pair agreed on a “form of words” – that exemptions are “under consideration” for Australia.

Albanese:

The US has a trade surplus with Australia, that it’s had since the Truman administration. It’s about 2/1 when it comes to trade between our two countries. The US is an important investor, of course, here in Australia as well. When you look at the imports of these products into the US, it’s about 1% of imports of steel, 2% of aluminium. Our steel is an important input for US manufacturing. BlueScope is the US’s fifth-largest steelmaker. They’ve invested $5 billion in the US across a range of states. I think there’s more than 30 different investments there. Of course, the major export is Colorbond there for roofs in California on the West Coast and at places at ports. Our aluminium is a critical input for manufacturing in the United States.

Our steel and aluminium are both key inputs for the US-Australia defence industries in both of our countries.

I presented Australia’s case for an exemption, and we agreed on wording to say publicly, which is that the US President agreed that an exemption was under consideration in the interests of both of our countries.

Anthony Albanese is due to step up in the prime minister’s courtyard any moment now, so we’ll be getting some more details on his first official conversation with Trump (he has already done the congrats on the new/old gig call, but this is official, official business)

In shocking news that should shock no-one who has paid attention to how any of these politics operate, the Albanese’s pre-emptive move to review the clinical guidelines around trans and gender healthcare for kids to try and starve off it becoming the political football of the right, has done absolutely nothing to stop vulnerable kids and their families from becoming the political football of the right.

In the senate overnight, Coalition senators, along with other far right senators, voted for Pauline Hanson’s motion for a senate inquiry into medical care for trans kids. So that is a thing that will happen now and will no doubt grab sensationalist headlines and make the mental health of trans children a political point scoring exercise.

Health minister Mark Butler was asked about it this morning on ABC TV and said he had been hoping the review he had ordered would have stopped the issue from becoming an election issue:

I was, because playing politics around the health and the lives – importantly, the mental health – of some of Australia’s most vulnerable young people is, frankly, an appalling thing to do.
We have issued a review by the national health Medical Research Council which has a statutory charter to issue clinical guidelines across the health system. It’s been doing it for decades. It unarguably is the pre-eminent authority to do that. Frankly, anyone who doesn’t accept the role of the NHMRC to do this work – and I thought Peter Dutton and the Shadow Health Minister, Anne Ruston, did – anyone who doesn’t just let them get get along and do their job, frankly, is playing politics on this issue.

Greg Jericho has written on the Trump tariff turmoil for the Guardian, where you’ll find some sense, without the shambles:

At this point I would like to pour out a long one to the USAFTA – that glorious free trade agreement the Howard government signed with the USA, which at the time John Howard said was “an historic agreement” and that “it will add enormous long-term benefits to the Australian economy”.

“Long-term” was less than 20 years.

The Australian government might ponder such things when it rushes to talk up Aukus which the defence minister, Richard Marles, suggests “provides significant, long-term strategic benefits for all three countries”.

If a free-trade agreement is able to be ignored as a mere scrap of paper, how rock solid are agreements to deliver submarines at some vague point in the future and only when the US has decided it does not have any need for them?

The government might also ponder that given in 2023 we exported a touch over $800m in steel and aluminium to the US and last week the defence minister graciously delivered that amount to the US as part of our instalment payment for the $360bn Aukus agreement (only 450 payments to go!).

You can read more, here.

Over on the Nine network, LNP senator Matt Canavan stuck to his peculiar style of communicating, which is half sense and half demented – a sort of verbal Jekyll and Hyde affliction he has just decided to embrace and make his entire personality – when speaking on Trump and the tariffs.

Canavan is a trained economist who loves to cosplay as a miner (although no workplace health and safety officer at a mine would let an employee cover themselves with as much coal dust without some sort of work management plan being put in place). But he isn’t alone there. There are plenty of trained economists who love to cosplay as political and social commentators based on their feels that businesses would never exploit workers and how dare you suggest such a thing! (Guys: the market will never love you back).

But back to this particular cosplaying economist.

Asked about the Trump tariffs and the Trump/Albanese phone call, Canavan said:

Look, obviously it’s important. It is a mess of the Prime Minister’s own making here. He appointed Kevin Rudd after Kevin had made the injudicious comments about Donald Trump. And having dug that hole, he needs to dig us out of it here. It’s up to him now. The test is on him.

But we shouldn’t also panic either.

As you say, they’re not our biggest market for these products. We saw China impose trade bans on us a few years ago on our coal and our barley. We got through that because we’ve got a very good product. We can sell it to other countries.

OK, some politics and some sense, What’s the problem, Amy?

He went on to say:

What we should be focused on too is our own internal tariffs. We, we put a carbon tax on all of these factories, we put a carbon tax on aluminium smelters, we put a carbon tax on steel mills thanks to this government.

Ahhh, there you go. Canavan is gonna Canavan. This is afterall, the man who when he resigned from the cabinet after the whole section 44 debacle (it was a whole thing – after dual citizenship became a constitutional issue, Canavan’s mum told him she had registered him as an ‘Italian citizen abroad’ without his knowledge which put him in the section 44 il fango as it were. He resigned from cabinet, but not the senate and later the high court found he wasn’t in breach because he didn’t know about it and his political career went on) wrote a whole post about what an honour it had been representing the mining industry.