14th July 2025: U.S. is overplaying its hand, relations with its close ally Australia could worsen: Evan Feigenbaum

CNBC International Live

Plain Text link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_HwJCZVI7o

I found that to be a fairly good overview of Trump's errors in pushing for Australia to publicly commit in advance to assisting the USA with the defence of Taiwan in the future - against China - while our PM is visiting China - something that has clearly been timed by Trump's goons to upset the visit and try to create tension between China and Australia while we're trying to improve relations and increase trade.

Sure, I fully understand that China has acted in a similar way to Trump in recent years, in that China has bullied us with tariffs that effectively shut out certain Australian exports (such as wine) from China by making our products far too expensive to compete there, in direct retalliation for comments that our then-PM made, such as agreeing that a proper investigation into the true origins of Covid-19 was actually a good idea, and now we're getting bullied by the USA through Trump's various tariff threats, so I am by no means saying that China is better than the US in that regard, however it seems obvious to me that the way to play this, as Mark Carney over in Canada has clearly shown, is to take serious steps to uncouple as much as possible from the country that is bullying you, to rely less on them in the future by finding new partners, including defence partners (he is looking to Europe for that, as we should) and new export markets, and putting extra effort into negotiating favourable trade deals with other countries or groups of countries.

It was the approach we took when China was being the schoolyard bully and it should be a similar gameplan now that the USA is the one doing the bullying.

Apart from anything else, Trump is not overly popular across Australia, similar to every other country in the world now I suspect (including the USA) so it's unlikely to end well politically (domestically) if our PM is seen to be cowering to Trump and not standing up for Australia as a sovereign country that has always been a decent partner to the USA and deserves far better treatment than what we are currently receiving, as does Canada and many other countries that have been strong allies of the USA up until now. Far better to be seen to have some backbone and be out there proactively exploring options and improving relations with our OTHER trading partners and potential trading partners.

Just my 2 cents, FWIW.

BTW isn't the implosion of the MAGA movement over the "Epstein Files" a hoot? And Trump's appointees turning on each other, like the FBI director and deputy director threatening to quit if Pam Bondi, the US AG (attorney general) and head of their "Department of Justice" is not fired by Trump or quits? You got to love it when they turn on each other. Towards the end of Trump's first Presidency, back in 2019, Bondi joined the White House as Special Advisor to President Trump in the Office of White House Counsel, working on the defense legal team throughout the unprecedented Impeachment Proceedings against Trump. Little wonder she was rewarded with the AG job. Likewise, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, the current director and deputy director of the FBI, were given those jobs because they were two of the most outspoken podcasters and "media identities" calling for the Epstein files to be released during the Biden administration, and saying that the FBI was corrupt and engaged in cover ups and needed to be gutted, defunded or closed down entirely. They have recently been using polygraphs (lie detector) tests to try to weed out anybody within the FBI that has said anything against them or their management decisions so they can sack them as well - they've already sacked heaps of people including most of the people involved in Jack Smith's investigations into Trump's various crimes - most of which Trump will likely never face any legal repercussions for. Pam Bondi has been active in those purges also: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/attorney-general-bondi-fired-20-officials-ties-jack/story?id=123707683

Now Dan Bongino, who went into the DD (deputy director) of FBI position saying that the full truth about Epstein and his associates would be released to the American public, is facing an untenable position in which Trump has shut down the Epstein files release through Bondi, and more recently said that while there might be more that hasn't been released, the stuff that hasn't been released is all fabricated lies that were written by Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, various other Democrats and people associated with them or aligned with them. Truly rediculous stuff.

The truth will come out.

There's nothing there. Nothing to see.

OK, there might be something but we haven't released it because it's all lies.

Now the MAGA conspiracy theorists are saying that Trump himself must be part of the conspiracy. Which means MAGA is unravelling, which should make the mid-term elections next year very interesting. Plenty of buyers regret across America right now.

And it should not be forgotten that Epstein considered Donald Trump to be his best friend for a decade. So the chances of Trump NOT being in the Epstein files is very, very slim. As Elon Musk recently said (in his now deleted X post), "...Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!"

Makes you wonder why Trump let these people whip the MAGA movement up into such a frenzy over the Epstein files before he was elected (unless he didn't expect to get elected) the second time, when he had no intention of allowing the Epstein files to be released in full. And then give the two top jobs at the FBI to the two guys who were the loudest voices calling for the Epstein files to be fully released? He's backed himself into a corner over this one, eh!

Who would have thought that MAGA would unravel over this?