Close trading ties between Australian and adjacent Asian and near Pacific countries are protecting Australians from the excesses of President Trump’s commitments in the new MAGA era.
These profitable trading ties for Australia can be extended to stronger regional investment ties to consolidate Labor’s gains with the electorate as preferred economic manager. This week’s Newspoll is particularly encouraging for the Albanese Government with a primary vote for Labor of 37 percent (+2.4 percent on 2025 election results). The Greens retain a primary vote of 12 percent. There is still an undercurrent of far-right populism in the latest Newspoll returns with some LNP votes drifting to One Nation and other ultra-conservative parties particularly in regional areas.
The current political instability in France was reported in the Vingt Heures news bulletin from Channel 2 in Paris on SBS Television this morning. The instability extends to other countries across Europe and beyond. In Japan with its woeful economic indicators, the once powerful Liberal Democratic Party is striving to rebuild under former rock-legend Sanae Takaichi as Prime Minister:
To strengthen her support from Japan’s far-right minor coalition partners, PM Takaichi draws inspiration from her frequent visits to the Yasakuni Shrine which honours Japan’s war dead from the old age of empires.
Interference in Japan’s domestic affairs commenced in 1853 when four US warships entered Tokyo Bay to demand the opening of Japan for global trade and militarization on terms favourable to Western Countries. Soon, Japan was in command of a maritime empire that extended to Korea, Taiwan and parts of the old Russian empire. Japan was an ally in the Great War (1914-18). Japan was also rewarded with former German enclaves in China, support from British military industrial complexes in the expansion of its Navy in the 1920s and co-sponsorship of unsuccessful military offensives against Bolshevik Russia with offers of new territorial acquisitions if this intervention was successful (Image: Russia Beyond):
While mainstream reporters in France and Japan rush to take profile pics of their new emergent conservative leaders, Yale Insights in New Haven Connecticut dares to offer a structural perspective on this eyewitness coverage.
On 21 August 2025, Yale Insights used the term Command Economy to encode the links between big corporations, military industrial complexes and regal perspectives in President Trump’s MAGA strategies for humanity which represent a profound departure from the neoliberal agendas of the Berlin Wall agendas of 1989.
The latest edition of Faculty Viewpoints (1 October 2025) from the team of academics and business leaders writing for Yale Insights moves into the largely unreported area of economic diplomacy under the Trump administration with references to geoeconomics – explaining how big powers collectively use alliances to reshape global power dynamics in their favour:
From Yale Insights 1 October 2025: Geoeconomics is the pursuit of hegemonic influence by great powers – trade and financial relationships – to change the economic or political behavior of other actors in the world.
It’s applying an economic instrument in a way that says, if you do what we want, we give you one treatment. If you don’t do what we want, we give you a different treatment.
It’s a practice that has been used by governments for a very long time. But some of the first writing about it was Albert Hirschman’s 1945 book National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade which examined how, during the interwar period, Germany strategically positioned its resources to be able to both project its influence and withstand pressure from countries like Great Britain.
Hirschman was an economist, but his ideas were primarily developed in political science and international political economy. Excepting for the Hirschman-Herfindahl Index, which Hirschman developed as a measure of trade dependencies, economists essentially ignored his ideas for the next 75 years.
Yale Insights has improved my understanding of the Trump administrations attempted political coup against representative government world-wide. It is developed in my AIM Network article – Alternative Political Futures: Fortress Australia with Progressive Regional Investment Links from 28 July 2025.
Prior to my visit to Italy in August 2025, I was well aware of how the Treaty of London 1915 brought Italy into the Great War (1914-18) with financial support from Britain with fifty million sterling in a favourable loan and promises of new territories in Africa and Greece.
Decades later sunbelt tourists flock to Apulia in Italy without releasing that Apulians were a cog in the wheel of a peace offering to Premier Krushchev as a bargaining chip to remove nuclear missiles from that part of Italy (Image: Map US Government and Promo to Celebrate the NATO Readiness):
Promo on the Spotters’ Day at Gioia del Colle follows for some light relief:
The NATO Tiger Meet 2023 is underway at Gioia del Colle Air Base, alternating high-level tactical training missions with various traditional social events. On Oct. 6, 2023, the 36° Stormo (Wing) hosted a Spotters Day which was attended by more than eight hundred people, confirming the Tiger Meet as one of the most famous and loved multinational exercises in Europe, at least among the aviation enthusiasts’ community.
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building on the critical issues raised in each article. Your comments on this and related articles can be recorded on theaimn.net site.
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Economic diplomacy is an ancient game which needs to be rediscovered by the mainstream press to replace those sermons from eminent writes in the Weekend Australian about the wonders of President Trump and the need for more support from Australians to his militarism and to appease some of his tariffs with more Aussie investment in the USA.
Go for national sovereignty during your scheduled encounter with President Trump on 20 October and always be our Labor leader when you finally meet up with the global commander.
National sovereignty should be on the agenda whenever Albo meets up with President Trump: Going too far might result in the cancellation of the whole deal without a money back guarantee for the billions in commitment already made. This deal was hatched in secrecy like that Treaty of London in 1915.
What a contrast to the headlines on this issue in the Australian (7 October 2025) in this article for AIM Network.
The fears generated by Andrew Shearer as Director-General of Intelligence to the Australian public against our best and most profitable trading partner show the pressures which are being placed on the Labor Government to conform to the US President’s directives on global security.
Stand firm Albo at that forthcoming encounter with the US Commander in Chief.
If AUKUS is not a goer, let’s have a full refund of the billions already wasted on these arrangements with the US and Britain.
AUKUS was designed to deliver a landslide victory to Scott Morrison in 2022 as with the All the Way with LBJ result in 1966.
Peacemakers should have a higher profile as leaders in Australia.
The Treaty of London was a disaster for Italy.
As Prime Minister of Italy, Antonio Salandra faced fierce opposition to his secret negotiations to send Italians off to the war front in 1915.
From retirement after 1916, Salandra supported Mussolini’s rise to power in the 1920s.
Salandra was a political nonentity who thought that Italy’s future lay with great and powerful friends at home and abroad.
Italy’s current far-right leaders continue the charades and support the NATO Tiger Association events that extend to many European countries as a symbol of far-right militarism e.g. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1260198101846284
From the Guardian (8 October):https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/07/texas-national-guard-troops-chicago-trump
Militarism arrives in Chicago with Texan national guard troops to enforce immigration enforcement.
How could the Australian PM support President Trump’s antics on 20 October at their scheduled encounter?
It is impolite to remain quiet on these vital issues.
Thanks for an interesting article Denis.
There seems to be some misconceptions about this AUKUS deal.
Throughout the whole process in regard to pillar 1 and the nuclear subs there is no scope for any refund to Australia, categorically none.
If the US or UK decide at any time to pull out of the deal, there is no refund for Australia, none, zip, zilch, and both the US or the UK can simply pull out on a whim without any refund for Australia.
If the US or UK simply can’t meet their commitments, and that is almost certain, and they decide not to continue, then Australia gets nothing back, no refund, zero, zilch, zip.
At the very best, if the US and UK persist we might get something way, way, way down the track.
Malcolm Turnbull held a summit on AUKUS before the last election. Retired-admiral Chris Barrie and Rex Patrick laid out the building rates of US subs and the state of the UK building program – it was blatently clear that the US was not going to meet its needs in the foreseeable future, that is, we won’t be getting any US subs. We won’t be getting any refund. As for the UK, their program is so bad we highly likely we won’t get a sub, and if by some miracle we should, then experts are saying the proposed design is not really suitable for our shallow waters – its too big apparently. If there’s no sub, it’s tough luck Australia, the agreement categorically says no refund.
At Turnbull’s summit the Defense dept.’s response to the facts was to go all Peter Pan on us – Tinkerbell will fly because we believe, everyone believe. I kid you not, the Defense Dept. said ‘we will get the submarines because we believe strongly, and you should too.’
On top of all this we have to build bases for the subs we won’t get, but that US subs will be able to use, at our expense, and take both the US and UK stores of radioactive material that they can’t/won’t handle and store them in Australia.
These people are in charge of defending our country. This is the worst deal in history.
Labor, the Liberals and the Defense dept. are utterly incompetent. Labor has secreted information, lied at times and betrayed this country with this deal.
Can Australians afford that $400 billion payment to the military and industrial complexes of Britain and especially the US for AUKUS commitments and to have de factor foreign submarine bases here
The banning of books is a feature of all Command Societies: True to form executive orders from the Oval Office are banning works of literature on ideological grounds under the Trump administration.
Our Albo seems to fear Trump’s wrath and must voice our disgust at the erosion of republican democracy in the USA.
From Victoria University in Melbourne: https://www.vu.edu.au/about-vu/news-events/news/whats-happening-with-us-book-bans-under-trump
Even Lord Kitchener (1850-1916) had cabinet rank as secretary of state for war in Asquith’s Government in Britain. Britain’s chief spies operates behind the scenes to assist in drafting telegrams to Australia.
First Earl Kitchener appealed to the Australian Labor Government of Billy Hughes to conscript Aussies for service on the Western Front. The two referenda on conscription failed. One of the biggest No Votes was in Q:
The first referendum was set for 28 October 1916. The campaign incited, in the words of historian Joan Beaumont:
“a public debate that has never been rivalled in Australian political history for its bitterness, divisiveness, and violence … What was at stake it soon emerged was not simply a disagreement about military need for conscription, but an irreconcilable conflict of views about core values: the nature of citizenship and national security; equality of sacrifice in times of national crisis; and the legitimate exercise of power within Australia’s democracy.”
Our Chief Spies should not bypass democratic processes by interacting with The Australian newspaper with their internal leaks to the press. That is for elected cabinet ministers to pursue.
Even Hughes allowed two referenda on the issue of conscription for overseas military service.
Hughes defected from Labor in 1916 when the first referendum failed.
Labor’s record majority in both houses of parliament from the 1914 election was in tatters. It was not restored for the next thirty years when Curtin gained a majority in both houses in 1943.
Scullin battled the Great Depression in 1929 without a majority in both houses. Labor Treasurer Joe Lyons broke ranks in 1931 to bring another decade of economic austerity to Australia with a populist commitment to balanced budgets like Sussan Ley today.
Do our Chief Spies realise the security threats from austerity and social division with texts that resemble Lord Kitchener’s proclamations to rally the electorate back to conservative ways and means.
Definitely, time to speak up against the contamination of our democracy by local and overseas intel services.
Is there a well-established higher tier of government from the Cold War era in Australia with strong directive powers for Albo’s government that are selectively communicated through the Australian.
Let’s see that this directive tier has to say in the Weekend Australian at the local library or at your favourite supermarket to save spending money on this propaganda outlet.