This week Latika Takes is in Australia and sits down with Dr Michael Green, the head of the United States Studies Centre at Sydney University.

Dr Green is a specialist on Indo-Pacific policy, having authored several books on Japanese politics and lived there as well as in Australia. He previously served in the Pentagon and sat on the National Security Council in George W Bush’s Administration.

He explains how the Democrats lost their way this election leading to Trump’s historically huge electoral victory, how US President Joe Biden surrounded himself with yes men to miss the wider picture forming across an inflation-scarred America and why these same dynamics are a factor in the upcoming Australian election.

He argues AUKUS and the Indo-Pacific will fare well under the Trump 2.0 Administration because America-Firsters are also Asia-Firsters.

Europe will not do so well. He says Germany will be panicking and Ukraine should not feel confident as Trump is likely to put previously non-negotiables like NATO on the table in order to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.

He explains why Australia is unlikely to be hit with Trump’s planned blanket tariffs and why the future of the Quad is probably safe.

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