It’s already clear that Donald Trump 2.0 is very different from the first iteration. He now has a much clearer agenda compared to 2017, a team of committed loyalists to implement it, and a supine Republican-controlled Congress willing to forfeit its constitutional role to back him. In Elon Musk, Trump has an energetic Reichsleiter determined to lay waste to their perceived enemies while pursuing his own ideological obsessions.
And this is now an imperial Trump. The isolationist of his first term has been replaced with an overtly aggressive expansionist. He wants to annex Canada and Greenland to access their critical minerals, seize the Panama Canal and has repeatedly proposed the ethnic cleansing of Gaza to make way for a giant Trump property development. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was dispatched to Kyiv to demand that Ukraine become an economic colony of the United States as repayment for previous US support.
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But this imperialist bent extends to seeking to dictate domestic policies to other countries. Trump 2.0 has sought extraterritorial application of his agenda — he and his administration want to MAGAfy the rest of the world.
The US wants to impose its corporate tax policies on the rest of the world. Not merely has the US withdrawn from the OECD global tax agreement to establish a minimum tax rate for corporations, but the US will now punish any country that imposes any “additional taxes” on US corporations — including consumption taxes or VATs — with tariffs.
In fact that goes beyond taxation to broader economic and social policy in other countries. Any “non-reciprocal” treatment of US corporations will earn retaliatory tariffs: subsidies for domestic industries (which the US extensively uses itself), “burdensome regulatory requirements on US businesses” and “any other practice that … imposes any unfair limitation on market access or any structural impediment to fair competition”.
That would cover local content rules, biosecurity requirements and food and product standards that are higher than those in the US; local and small business preference requirements in government procurement; anti-dumping mechanisms; foreign ownership restrictions; and, in Australia, systems like the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
Trump extended this to tech companies, threatening tariffs on any country with “regulations imposed on United States companies by foreign governments that could inhibit the growth or intended operation of United States companies” or “any other act, policy, or practice of a foreign government that serves to undermine the global competitiveness of United States companies.”
He has also demanded Europe buy more fossil fuels from the United States or face tariffs. American companies are already lobbying Trump to demand the overturning of EU sustainability rules; the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism which will commence in 2026, designed to prevent unfair competition from countries that refuse to curb carbon emissions, is being touted as a likely target.
This extraterritoriality goes beyond the purely economic. Trump’s hostility to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) activities by companies hasn’t just led to large US firms abandoning DEI; it’s seen global companies like Toyota and ALDI do the same.
And then there’s the direct interference in other countries’ politics. Not merely has Elon Musk backed the far-right AfD in Germany and called for Germany to forget its Nazi past, but Vice President JD Vance lectured Europe on its alleged lack of democratic values, and spurned an offer to meet the German chancellor, instead meeting with an AfD leader. Musk has also been involved in plotting to oust the UK government.
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While Western governments and media have for years fretted about interference by Russia and China, there is now a vastly bigger threat: the United States and its agenda to force other countries to mimic its tax, economic and social policies and embrace right-wing extremism. If Russian and Chinese interference was done subtly, through social media, misinformation, political donations and intimidation of local Chinese communities, there’s nothing subtle about Trump’s interference — effectively, it’s comply or be economically punished.
He’s aided by a fifth column in other countries — Trump fans and MAGA supporters within existing political systems, who look to him as not merely a political guide but a deity whose every suggestion, no matter how absurd or inconsistent, is to be followed. Mainstream politicians like Anthony Albanese embrace circumspection to avoid the risk of tariffs, hoping that they can maintain a relatively business-as-usual relationship with the US by avoiding giving offence of any kind.
But the US has changed. It is no longer a benign force for stability for those who ally themselves with it. It is an economic and cultural enemy to everyone (bar Russia), seeking to force change, compliance or annexation on other countries. At some point, Australia will come into the gun sights of Trump, or Musk, and the stakes will become a lot higher than a small level of aluminium exports. Our leaders need to find a different strategy than pretending it’s business as usual, or apeing the thug-king of America.
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