The Chaser Report - Blood, Sweat, and Tariffs

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Trump's tariffs have changed geopolitics for good, so Charles and Dom brainstorm what Australia needs to do next. Watch out New Zealand, you might not like their ideas.Watch OPTICS on ABC iview here:https://iview.abc.net.au/show/opticsCheck out more Chaser headlines here:https://www.instagram.com/chaserwar/?hl=enGive us money:https://chaser.com.au/support/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And Charles, it's time to talk about tariffs, the ongoing tariff wars and Australia's role in all of this. And I think, Charles, to make sure that we have the most accurate, timely thing, we should record this a day in advance, because you're in Adelaide and you're busy, as am I. Yes. What a great introduction, Dom. we've now lost the entire audience.

The mention of tariffs as the sort of topic of this debate and out of date chat about tariffs, no least. Let's bring it back. This is going to be one of the biggest issues in the election campaign that is going to start any day now,

which is how does Australia respond to the Donald Trump trade war? And there's a few philosophies on this. And then there's an apparent consensus between Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese which we'll talk about. Now, so I'm I've got a theory.

Oh, thank goodness. About what went on in the game room that they gamed out with the trade war. The game room. Okay. So I don't know whether you read the reports, but apparently Anthony Alvonezzi claims that they actually gamed out all the different scenarios on how Australia should respond to the Trump tariffs on steel on Australia. And they came to the conclusion that.

the best thing to do was absolutely jack shit right and but that was after extensive game yeah i think it's important to be represent them accurately so there it's not that we're doing nothing charles it's that we have a policy of what we call it strategic inaction strategic rolling over and taking it strategic falling down and pretending you're dead charles they all sat in a room and and they use game theory and they right they mapped it out come on so i have it on good authority and i'm not I cannot disclose my sources, but I have a good authority that they all didn't do the game room thing, right? So the whole point is you would think when Albo says, oh, we gamed it out. It means the cabinet, right?

Now, I have it on very good authority that the cabinet was not involved in the gaming of those scenarios, right? Which means it must have been, I don't know, maybe a handful of the senior thing. But I suspect it's going to be Albo's office, right? Has he got a kitchen cabinet? Because that worked so well. Albo is. Was that I'm part of the kitchen cabinet? I can't remember now. Probably not. In the right era. Yeah, he probably doesn't even know about the kitchen cabinet.

But anyway, but he was involved in some gaming it outright. And if you think about it, you know, these are people who work with Albo day to day, gaming it out, right? And so just think as you're running through all the scenarios, if you take into account Albo's ability to prosecute a case, tell a story, go to war against an adversary, right? And you go, well, we have zero percent talent and skill to do any of that, right? So every time they came to a scenario, it was like, okay, well, what if we stood up and said something about how bad that was? Oh, well, and Alba would probably have gone. Oh, well, we can't do that because I'd have to get up and, or his staff would go, well, let's be realistic here. You're not going to be able to string a sentence together that tells, that prosecutes a case.

against America. I'm getting a slight... I'm getting a slight sense of disdain coming from you here. Well, just look, no, this is not disdain. This is just fucking historical fact. Look at the last three years. There's not to be a single thing that Alba has done on anything ever for three years. Of course they're going to game it out and go, oh yeah, no, we're just going to fucking roll over

and take it. I want to see if there's a game room where senior labour... figures want to send Charles Firth mad and just come out with a plan that's just going to tie you up in knots and drive you to distraction because that strategy see if if there is a strategy that seems to be going rather well well that probably would have been part of the factoring in it would have been and he'll send Charles mad but I think I think let's indulge in the exercise let's imagine we're in the room trying to work out well if we do that then this and if we do this then that and what happens with the response to Trump so the obvious thing is

What they should have done. So I have a theory, actually, about what they should actually do. I'm going to tell you this theory, right? Which is, I, so apparently all the universities in Australia are being flooded with literally hundreds of applications and academics sort of emailing to their colleagues in Australia going, so any positions available universities? Because the university sector in the US is being massively defunded. They took 400 million out of Columbia University, which is one of the top eight universities in America.

They're threatening Harvard with similar sorts of cuts. But also, there's all this sort of academic freedom stuff going on, which actually also affects Australian academics. I've heard tales this week of how if you're an Australian academic and your funding partially comes from American sources, American government sources, then because you're in a sort of joint research relationship with Americans all those projects are being required to sign forms pledging that none of their studies

and none of the research imperatives are caused by DEI yeah no this is being reported on this is so apparently in the document is anyone who's got any research funding from the US who is a major funder of a lot of academic research around the world Yeah, things like they have to dismiss all the – they've got to mention all their links with China. They've got to explain what steps they've taken against the persecution of Christians, and they've got to say what they've done to defend against gender ideology. And so anything that's sort of transrelated, forget it.

That's absolutely off the table, apparently. So the brain drain is on. Like academics are fleeing America. And American academics are very good academics, right? They are. I should just know, Charles. Sorry, just before you leave that point, the US has apparently now suspended or terminated research grants

with six out of eight of the G8 universities. So it is really biting in on research in Australia. Yep. So the brain drain is on in America. American academics are in their hundreds trying to flee out of America to Australia, right? What Albo's should do in response to the steel tariffs is set up the steel tariff visa.

program, right? Oh, interesting. As long as the steel tariffs are on, then we're going to have our own visa system, which invites any academics into Australia, like essentially if you're an American academic, come in, we'll match the funding that you had in the US. You know, it can be cost up to whatever the economic cost of the steel tariff is, which I think is like a billion dollars or something like that. You could sort of just have a billion dollars to sort of accelerate the brain drain from

America and be a in Australia could become the place of safe harbour for academic American academics who don't want to be you know sort of so who are already looking to to flee the nation well this is Charles unless beneficiary of the greatest brain drain of the 21st century this is of course unless those academics do work that is funded by the US which um can't tick all those boxes in that paperwork because interesting that um they're all leaving to avoid the academic regime to all the academic restrictions in the US and then they have to deal with the same issue over here as well. But that's interesting Charles. So a brain drain steel tariff visa, the other way to do it, Charles, because it's a slight issue with what you said. And that is

that resisting or doing anything to fight back at all against any tariffs makes Trump angrier. As we've seen in the case of the champagne, now this is pretty hilarious. What he said is that, okay, so he's imposed all these tariffs on the EU, the EU's put reciprocal ones back on alcohol from the EU, you know, French wine and so on. The Europeans have put tariffs back on in responses, they've matched it on things like Kentucky Bourbon or whatever. But then Trump absolutely lost it

and said he will impose 200% tariffs on champagne. 200% tariffs on champagne, which essentially means that only rappers will be able to afford champagne in the US. And this, what this tells me is that Trump then said, this is a wonderful opportunity for, you know, Californian champagne makers. And this just goes to show that Donald Trump is not a drinker, which we know. Because the idea that if you can't get French champagne, you'd get Californian champagne is pretty extraordinary. So, mind you, I have drunk Trump champagne.

He did have his own champagne, yes. Yes, which came from Virginia and was completely fine. Was it? Yes. Oh, you've got no palate either. That's so sad. Yeah, so the point is, um, look, I'm with Trump on this one. Like, fuck the French.

What I'm getting to, what I'm getting to on this one, no, Charles. But isn't it, isn't it more sensible? And also, anyway, isn't champagne priced at a premium? Already, yes, it is. Won't 200% tariffs just make it even more desirable? That's probably true. And it'll probably have an opposite effect. That's right.

But Charles, here's the thing. And this is the kind of counterpoint on this. Maybe rather than having a special tariff and getting up and saying, oh, we, we, we, we're, we're having a response. You just do it quietly. You don't make any fuss about it. I love your approach is the passive-aggressive response. You just say, you just don't comment at all and just quietly let everybody in and take

it. But that was literally the Malcolm Turnbull response to the aluminium tariffs in 2018. But didn't he get us an exemption in 2018? He got us an exemption. But the exemption included a whole of caps on how much aluminium were it allowed to export. And then he agreed to it And then it was just passive-aggressively broken Like that's where the Americans are actually correct

Right in saying Oh, we shouldn't grant an exemption Because the point is The Australian exemptions are worth shit Because we just passive-aggressively break the And that's such a classic Malcolm Turnbull What? That's just goes to show what a good strategy it is to do nothing

No, but it doesn't then come back to buy you It comes back to buy you When they discover in five years time That you've just been passive aggression No, no, no, you've got to own your own actions, Dom. Have you ever been in a relationship? Isn't it better? Isn't it better, Charles?

Wouldn't it be more sensible to just say, oh, thank you for these wonderful tariffs, Mr. Trump. And in response to this, we have a special visa program so that we can learn from Americans, because we acknowledge that American to the best people in the world. We know that Americans are the best people going. So we want a whole lot of them to come and get unlimited visas to live here and work here, as long as they want to. So they can teach us your ways, Mr. Trump. Might that be the way to get all these academics in and businesses?

Why don't we make a pitch to, I mean, Apple, Apple's being, having all this pressure on it to comply with the DEI mandates. And obviously Tim Cook's not a big fan of that. Why don't we say, you know, Apple can move down under and just bring some of that California know-how to our tech sector and just get anyone who's got a problem with the status quo in the US, just get them, I mean, obviously amnesty. but think of it as a learning experience. They're ambassadors to the American way of life.

You know that there is just one tiny, tiny flaw in our plan. Uh-oh. Which is, you know, because you're talking Tim Cook, right? Sure. Tim Cook? CEO of Apple, right? Like, he would earn, he'd be, what, on $100 million. Oh, he's a billionaire, surely, yeah.

Yeah. I don't think he'd be able to afford to move to Sydney. That's true. Yeah, he's only got... The house prices would just be like... They've already had a look. kick the ties and going, nah. You know the other problem, Charles?

If we had a special program for prominent American business figures to come down under, there'd be a non-zero chance of getting Elon. I mean, as we said, that guy's on the outer in the US in no time. I think that could be very risky. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. So, Chalper, it's an interesting question. I mean, it's fair to say that Donald Trump, he's very unprepared.

The way, you don't know what he's going to do. He puts in a tariff, he cancels and he brings it back again. It's a bit like dealing with my, with my toddler in many ways, that there's no consistency. You've been a parent for longer than me. How do you deal with kids who don't do what they say they'll do? What's an effective parenting technique? Well, you just sort of ignore them and chat amongst yourselves. Well, that's, you know what the Australian government's doing?

Petit Dutton and Anthony Aberdeasy are not coming out and criticising Donald Trump. Oh, you can keep putting your knife in that electric socket. You go, no, don't do that. Now, what were you saying? Whoever you're talking to? You know what I meant? You just sort of, you still have to tell them what they've done is wrong. You don't go, it's not a good analogy because in this analogy, the toddler is far more powerful than we are.

So that's probably not a good analogy. But it is, I don't know, I mean, so much as, or it's only March, it's mid-March. The guy's only been in the job for less than two months, and it feels like a year's worth of stuff happening. I think Albo's been in power a lot longer than that. Two months. Has he only been in power for two months? Oh, gosh.

So there's four years of this, Charles. What position will be in by the end of the four years? Well, this is why I'm hoping that, you know how Putin and Trump are going to meet this week? Yes. I'm hoping that it's face-to-face, because the old Polonium tea could solve everything. Putin slips Trump a bit of a polonium in the tea. Well, that would certainly, I mean, look, if that would have happened, that really would be egg on the face of all the Democrats

who still claim that Trump's a Russian asset. There are quite a few around. Conspiracy. Oh, I don't know. Look, I don't know what's going to have it. I mean, isn't the point that the whole way the world works has been torn up? And the worst thing that you could possibly do is just sort of ignore that fact. And that's what Alba and Dutton are doing.

Like, it's going to take the, it's going to take a straight. I just predict that it'll take 10 or 15 years for Australia to realize, oh, actually, the US isn't our allies anymore, even though last week, they already told us. They told us that already. It's like, it's like, you know, your partner saying, oh, our marriage is over. And then you're just making dinner for them. But that's, like, it's just. I'm sure a lot of people would say marriages that way, child.

You just got to accept it. It's Band-Aid off. And it's like, walk out. out the door. Okay, all right. I'm just going to just, I've been doing some thinking, and I've got a, I've got a new approach for us. I've got a new approach that I think will work.

Oh, okay. All right. So we as Australians, we've lost the certainty of the US security umbrella, and I think that's fair enough. Donald Trump has now repeatedly said that he doesn't even know what or cause he is. I think we can't put any reliance in any of that sort of stuff. We're a bit traumatized. It seems as though there's, there's bullying going on.

I mean, what Trump is doing to Mexico, and particularly to Canada, is basically bullying, you know, calling the Prime Minister Governor, saying you'll be up to your first state, actively trying to destroy the Canadian economy is what the thing seems to be, so that it's easier to get them coming cap in hand to join the US. That's what Trump's doing. Now, what do you do if you've been bullied early in your life? Yes. You then bully people who you love more powerful. Yes.

What you do is you pass on the trauma by becoming a bully yourself. And Australia, I mean, it's not that big, right? We're pretty small. but in the South Pacific we are a big player I'm looking at you Norfolk Island Norfolk Island now Roo I mean PNG I don't think we're quite

Maybe not the Cook Islands They just signed a deal with China Not so much New Zealand Because they they bet us at rugby bit But the smaller ones I mean if we were to be a bully We might hope I'm just spitballing here Charles

We might do a deal with East Timor Where we I don't know Get a lot of their Oil and Gas revenues maybe sort of bug people in their government and negotiate unfairly. I mean, that's the sort of thing we do if we were wanting to be a bully in the region. What do you reckon? Yes.

Yes, I love it. Well, Nauru, we could send a bunch of people there who we don't want and no one wants and just dump them there indefinitely. And that would make Peter Dutton the perfect Prime Minister, really, because he already has cracked jokes about Kiribas. Oh, the sea level's rising. Yeah, going under the water and stuff and Tuvalu. It's sort of nice island pity if anything would happen to it.

with the rising sea leaders that are inevitable. So I think, and, you know, yeah, Queensland cop vibes on the bullying front would just be, I mean, that would, I'm there for that. So essentially, which one's our Iraq? Which one's the one that we think that we can just go over and invade? Is it Fiji? I feel like it's Fiji. Yeah, or Tonga.

Yeah, we go over and then we go, oh, fuck. This is actually quite hard. There's a reason why there bounces in Australia. And it's just a total quagmire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I think we base, New Zealand needs to be our Britain. So we're not going to try and conquer New Zealand.

We're having New Zealand as a sort of little brother who comes along on the adventures doesn't really have any power, but we treat them as a special, you know, get them a little badge. Yeah, yeah. I love how the British think that they're like special to the US. It's so cute.

I feel like Norfolk Island is the way to go because that's only got like a couple of hundred people. I reckon we could take that. Also, they think they're Australian. Don't they know they think they get Australian passports? And the other one is Solomon Islands Because I remember you remember last time There was a coup in Solomon Islands

It only lasted a couple of days And then the coup leaders Do you remember this? This was like 10, 15 years ago The coup leaders escaped to another one of the islands Like not the main island And Australia sent the AFP over there, I think, To try and we tried to land tanks

On the Solomon Islands But they didn't have a jetty big enough To put the tanks on Anyway, so we sent a few people over there and it turned out there was one gun missing and on Solomon Islands and it became a huge standoff because the rebels had one gun and there were and usually there's only a few guns on the island having previously had no guns well no no there were like the police I think had like half a dozen guns and they were always locked in the armour and the first thing that the rebels did was they broke into

the armour well you would wouldn't you and and stole all the guns they handed back five they were they still had one gun on this other island, and there was like a two-week standoff before the rebels agreed, I think in return for sort of certain immunity and stuff of that, to hand back the remaining single gun. Well, it just goes to show that if you, if, if the, if the stakes are small enough, even Australia can predominate. Can predominate. I think that's a fantastic lesson. We could be the, we could essentially be the United States of the South Pacific. Yes. Yes. I think we are. I think we, it's, In some ways, we already are.

Just, let's, um, don't tell, I definitely don't tell China. And, and I wouldn't even tell, you know, I wouldn't even tell Singapore or Japan or certainly not. Maybe not even New Zealand, actually. Yeah, just keep it quiet. But just, Cook, Cook Islands, look out. No, no, no, no, no, not Cook Islands. Oh, not, God, yeah. What about King Island?

We, they've just got a dairy on that. We can make an example of that. I think we already own it. That's exactly right. So we'll invade it. No one will realize we actually own it. Yeah. And we can just stage it all.

And we get all the points. Wag the dog style. Yes. We're part of the iconocles network. Why are we whispering? So that no one in King Island gets wind of it. Oh, okay.