The comparative silence from within the Australian government about India's trade deal with the European Union cannot conceal the opportunities it opens for Australia. It and other trading nations are suddenly in a world which recognises the need to have alternatives to economic, military and cultural rules imposed by President Donald Trump and the United States.

Login or signup to continue reading

It was not conceived that way: the EU-India trade negotiations had been going on for years. But they concluded just after Europe confronted Trump with his lawless and irresponsible behaviour over Greenland and Canada, and his decision to impose extra tariffs on most European countries because they had supported Denmark in rejecting Trump's demands.

Last week I commented on the silence of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his ministers over this moment in history. Implicitly I was wishing we had the guts to associate ourselves with a new movement, a new determination, and a feeling that the world is not going to be bullied by Donald Trump. Trump brought most of it upon himself, but his bluff was called, and he retreated, mumbling to himself. European unity, and its willingness to contemplate the disbanding of an American-dominated NATO, as well as a galvanising speech at Davos by the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney about the potential fate, or fortune, faced by the world according to how to deal with the threats and bluster posed by Trump. Trump caved to the pressure - at least as far as with his threats of force over Greenland and his punitive tariffs, and it was clear that most countries agreed with Carney's description of a potential new economic world order to serve in the place of the international institutions, rules and framework set up 80 years ago. Rules and a framework no longer dominated by the economic power of the US.

The new system is a work in progress, but the opportunity has been opened for a world trading bloc that does not includes the US. That does not necessarily mean that the US would face boycotts. But since Trump imposes high tariffs without any particular rhyme or reason, producers and traders from other nations would prefer other customers, and the more they did so, the less they would be subject to arbitrary coercion imposed by Trump - perhaps in pursuit of some foreign affairs or defence interest, perhaps in an effort to selectively impose his social, moral or political views on sovereign nations, and only casually in pursuit of a belief that American prosperity and revival will occur by building a tariff wall around the US, in an effort to force manufacturing industry to base itself in the US.

But we can hardly avoid jumping in, fully clothed, into the new swim. The very EU deal with India creates the prospect of additional world production and trade. The EU has already made similar deals with Indonesia and some other southeast Asian nations - all potential big markets for EU produce, but also potential sources of goods for which there is high demand in Europe. There are sticking points - particularly with agricultural produce as Australia knows from its own negotiations with Europe as well as India. But even where such agreements do not close all trade barriers, or create a completely free trade zone, the agreements represent a determination to increase trade and barriers to trade, and to create new frameworks by which trade disputes can be resolved, where law and settled rules operate instead of ad hoc forms of state intervention, often for purposes having little to do with the actual goods or services bought and sold in the........

© Canberra Times