Dutton has flirted pathetically with Trump. On ‘Liberation Day’, the honeymoon is over.

For all the massive implications Donald Trump has on Australia’s security, he poses a much more immediate threat to our economic interests and global stability: by this time tomorrow, we could be in the middle of a trade war on a scale not seen since the 1930s.

Trump has already launched us into a low-level conflict with his tariffs targeting China, selected products like aluminium and steel, and motor vehicles. Tomorrow’s “Liberation Day” announcement, where Trump is expected to announce global tariffs, could initiate a general trade war as China and the EU, which are already retaliating against Trump’s initial blast of protectionism, fight back with their own tariffs, or outright bans on US products.

The repercussions for Australia of a global trade war will be far more significant than the direct impact of more US tariffs on Australian products. The health of China, the global economy and the maintenance of free trade underpin our prosperity.

None of which is good news for Peter Dutton. As with any war, voters will likely rally around the government once Australia comes under further unprovoked economic attack from the US. Strengthening that will be the fact that US demands centre on key elements of Australia’s domestic quality of life — destroying the PBS to force us to pay more for medicines; overriding our biosecurity laws so the US can sell meat from their disgusting poultry industry (the UK is currently being pressured to allow chlorinated chicken in from the US).

Dutton and the Coalition know this. That’s why the opposition leader has ditched the line that the tariffs are all Anthony Albanese’s fault in favour of a more “Team Australia” feel, backing Albanese’s position that Australia won’t be negotiating away the PBS or biosecurity standards.

It’s one of a number of ways in which Trump, universally held to be a positive for Dutton’s electoral chances last year, is proving instead to be a millstone.

Indeed, Dutton’s loss of political momentum, and what turned out to be now nearly three months of stumbles and errors, can be dated from Trump’s inauguration, which the Coalition — thinking it was in the box seat to defeat Labor — openly embraced. In early February, Michaelia Cash, a senior member of Dutton’s leadership team, said “The American people, they expect action. And that is what they’re getting. And they’ll get the exact same attitude under a Peter Dutton government.”

By that stage, the chaos and uncertainty being created by Trump was already in evidence. Less than a fortnight after Cash said Dutton would be like Trump, US stock markets entered what turned out to be a precipitous plunge of 10%. Suddenly, apeing the mad king didn’t seem such a good idea.

Still, Dutton wasn’t able to help himself. In March, he announced a Trumpian policy to force workers to return to the office in the public service, a policy that exploded in his face and had to be walked back in response to fury from parents suddenly looking at massive upheaval to their care arrangements.

Then, for reasons still best known only to himself, Dutton abandoned any focus on the cost of living in mid-March to offer a referendum for a Trump-style proposal to deport anyone with dual citizenship or potentially able to claim dual citizenship. That would mean perhaps half of all Australians, or more, could be stripped of their Australian citizenship and deported to countries like New Zealand, the UK, India or China for committing white collar crime or drug offences.

Labor was and is refusing to “offer a running commentary” on Trump, anxious to avoid upsetting the toddler-in-chief, but since the campaign has started the government has been happy to link Dutton to the US, if not directly to Trump. Expect that to only increase in the wake of “Liberation Day” if key Australian sectors are hurt.

And while that’s happening, Dutton has given Labor another gift in the form of a Trump-style commitment to shutter the federal Department of Education, an idea that could have come straight from Project 2025.

It’s another stumble in a campaign start so poor that Dutton is already, just a few days in, promising colleagues that he will lift his game. Bizarrely, it looks like the start of the election caught the Coalition by surprise, despite it being the most heavily teased election in decades. Dutton’s signature nuclear policy — which clearly landed poorly in the Coalition’s internal polling — has had to be binned in favour of a gas reservation policy. Yesterday’s debacle in Victoria — where an announcement to cut funding from the Suburban Rail Loop (an excellent idea) and shift it to the Tullamarine rail link (a terrible idea) was inexplicably held in a vineyard — suggests inexperienced and poor-quality staff are making important decisions.

Dutton has repeatedly emphasised in his backgrounding to journalists that he’s no Trump. But publicly, he keeps trying to sound like Trump and offer policies like Trump. It doesn’t matter what press gallery journalists believe, only what voters think. And, having worked to align himself with the mad king, Dutton may find himself unable to escape the long shadow Trump is casting over this campaign.

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