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6 Sep 2025

Saturday, 6th, September, 2025: Bruce Wolpe-Snr Fellow US Study Centre; Update on USA Politics and Trump and the Dept. of War.

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Saturday, 6th, September, 2025: Bruce Wolpe-Snr Fellow US Study Centre; Update on USA Politics and Trump and the Dept. of War.

Nevena and Macca are joined live on air by Bruce Wolpe-Snr Fellow US Study Centre. as they discuss insights from Bruce’s recent trip to the US + state of Trump’s health and AUS/US relationship.

Wolpe’s most recent article looks at ‘The United States has changed. Australia hasn’t. It’s time to talk about where the relationship goes from here’;

“Seven months after Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second term as US president, we are facing the most important moment in Australia’s foreign policy since the Iraq war. Australia needs to have a national conversation on the future of its alliance with the United States.

The alliance was on the line with Trump’s tariff decisions on 1 August. The consensus was Australia dodged a bullet, and life goes on.

But this was no flesh wound. By dictating and unilaterally imposing the terms of trade between the US and Australia – affirming the “reciprocal tariffs” of 10% imposed on Australia, plus the tariffs of 50% on both steel and aluminium – Trump has trashed the historic US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

Trump has not provided a good answer to the question of what he is doing to one of the US’s strongest and most consistent allies. And there is more to come. The president will also place a tariff on US imports of Australian pharmaceuticals.

There is also far more to come on the future of the US–Australia alliance.

Media have been full of opinions on what the relationship between the two countries ought to look like. These interventions have assayed the crucial importance of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meeting personally with Trump; whether Washington was rattled by Albanese’s visit to China, whether Australia should “fortify northern Australia into an allied military stronghold for the region”; and whether the relationship is being mismanaged”

https://www.ussc.edu.au/the-united-states-has-changed-australia-hasn-t-it-s-time-to-talk-about-where-the-relationship-goes-from-here

Bruce Wolpe is a Senior Fellow (non-resident) at the United States Studies Centre. Bruce is a regular contributor on US politics across media platforms in Australia. In recent years, Bruce has worked with the Democrats in Congress during President Barack Obama’s first term, and on the staff of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He has also served as the former PM’s chief of staff.

Bruce is author of Trump’s Australia, an examination of Donald Trump’s possible return to the presidency and the issues presented to Australia (Allen & Unwin, 2023), The Committee, a study of President Obama’s legislative agenda in Congress (University of Michigan Press, 2018, 2d Edition September 2021) and Lobbying Congress: How The System Works (Congressional Quarterly Books, 1990, 1996).