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9 August 2023
Keeping up with Australia's statecraft
By Victoria Cooper, Research Editor
While the multinational Talisman Sabre exercises officially concluded late last week, maritime security certainly remains top of mind this week, with navies from the Quad countries — Australia, India, Japan and the United States — set to commence the 10-day Malabar naval exercise off Sydney’s Pacific coastline on Friday 11 August. Australia’s first time hosting the Malabar exercise, as Research Fellow Tom Corben writes for Nikkei Asia, is “ample consolation” for the last-minute cancellation of the Quad leaders’ summit scheduled for Sydney last May.
News of a visit from USS North Carolina to HMAS Stirling in Perth — the first visit from a Virginia-class US Navy submarine since the March AUKUS optimal pathway announcement — sees the fruition of a major announcement from the recent Australia-US Ministerial (AUSMIN) meeting, which promised more frequent rotations of US nuclear-powered submarines to Australian naval facilities.
Bringing key regional partners to Australian shores for the Malabar exercise, off the back of Australia’s hosting of Talisman Sabre and AUSMIN, demonstrates Australia’s commitment to deepening defence cooperation with a range of allies and partners from across the Indo-Pacific, in the interest of shoring up collective regional deterrence.
Making further headway towards these efforts, on Tuesday 8 August the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade released its International Development Policy, launching new development projects and a A$250 million fund for private investment in the Pacific. Developments like these show, as Director of Foreign Policy and Defence Professor Peter Dean pointed out on ABC, Australia’s defence and foreign ministries working closely together in a coordinated effort of “statecraft” to manage great power competition.
To catch up on developments in maritime security, be sure to listen to the latest episode of USSC Briefing Room featuring Professor Peter Dean and Blake Herzinger, and subscribe to the podcast for all the latest in Australian and US foreign policy.
NEWS WRAP
China lifts barley tariffs
- China lifts Australian barley tariffs | On 4 August, China announced it will remove tariffs on Australian barley, after more than three years of trade sanctions on the export. Of the approximately A$20 billion of Australian exports sanctioned by China when the Albanese government came to office in May 2022, only A$2 billion remain under Chinese sanctions. READ MORE HERE
- Ohio abortion rights on the ballot | Ohioans rejected a proposal to raise the threshold from a simple majority of votes (50 per cent) to a supermajority (60 per cent) for approving amendments to their state’s constitution — the strictest of any US state. The result of the referendum, which would have made it more difficult to pass constitutional amendments had it been successful, was seen as a victory for supporters of abortion rights in their effort to prevent the Republican-controlled State Legislature from restricting access to abortion through future legislation. READ MORE HERE
- NY judge dismisses Trump countersuit | A New York federal judge threw out Donald Trump’s defamation countersuit against writer E. Jean Carroll,
which sought compensatory damages for the court’s May decision that found him liable for battery and defamation. US District Judge Kaplan maintained the details finding Trump to have sexually abused Carroll, which Trump claimed to be defamatory, are “substantially true.” READ MORE HERE
- ‘Ghost gun’ restrictions upheld | In a 5 to 4 vote, the US Supreme Court reinstated the Biden administration’s regulations on “ghost guns,” though unresolved legal challenges around the legislation remain. The administration’s rules, which have been in place since August 2022, require self-made guns to comply with same regulations as commercially-purchased firearms. READ MORE HERE
“This new policy reflects who we are. Australia is there, not only in times of crisis, but is working with the region to strengthen its resilience and to help deliver its aspirations.”
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announcing Australia’s new International Development Policy and Development Finance Review | 8 August 2023
EVENT
Countering a Taiwan crisis with economics
The past few years have seen an unprecedented use of economic coercion as a tool of international relations, from sanctions placed on Russia, Iran, and North Korea to the ongoing export control battle between China and the United States. How far will these tools go? Would sanctions work in China in the event of a Taiwan crisis? What would it mean for the private sector and businesses?
To discuss this, please join us for a discussion with Adam Smith, a world-leading international trade compliance lawyer and former advisor to President Obama, in conversation with Hayley Channer, Director of Economic Security at the United States Studies Centre.
TYPE
Public forum
WHERE
Level 5 Function Room, The Michael Spence Building (F23) Corner of Eastern Avenue and City Road, The University of Sydney Camperdown NSW 2006
WHEN
SYDNEY | Thursday, 17 August 2023, 5.30–6.30pm
COST
Free, but registration is essential.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Did you USSC?
- Announcement | American Australian Association - United States Studies Centre Postdoctoral Fellowships
Together with the American Australian Association, the United States Studies Centre is seeking postdoctoral researchers to join the Centre in a new Postdoctoral Fellowship program for early-career researchers. MORE INFORMATION HERE
- Explainer | AUSMIN 2023 explained
Research Fellow Tom Corben and Research Associate Alice Nason address the key deliverables from this year's AUSMIN meeting and what it might mean for the operationalisation of the alliance agenda. READ MORE HERE
- Insights | Making sense of the US credit rating downgrade
Senior Economic Advisor Dr John Kunkel discusses the Fitch Ratings decision to strip the US government of its top tier sovereign credit rating. READ MORE HERE
BY THE NUMBERS
Where is the most Trump-friendly jury pool?
After his historic third indictment charge last week, Trump appeared in Washington DC's E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on Thursday, where he entered a plea of not guilty on all four criminal charges relating to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result. Among the many reasons that the occasion was significant, the arraignment marked one of a handful of times the former president has returned to DC since leaving office in January 2021.
It is not surprising that Trump has largely avoided DC. In 2020, over 92 per cent of the electorate voted for Joe Biden. It is exactly that ‘unfriendliness’ towards the former president that now forms a cornerstone of the Trump legal team’s argument that a DC jury could not possibly facilitate a fair or ‘legitimate’ trial, and hopes for the case to be moved to an “impartial venue such as the politically unbiased nearby state of West Virginia” — as Trump wrote on Truth Social — which he won by nearly 40 points in 2020. Similar arguments were made by several January 6 defendants to no avail.
The Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the right of criminal defendants to a fair public trial, and jurors have a responsibility to be impartial, free from biases and conflicts of interest. But the suggestion from Trump’s legal team to move the case to a more Trump-friendly county got me thinking — in which district court would Trump have the most sympathetic* jury? (*Assuming sympathy would be indicated through voter support).
Trump’s uphill battle with the courts next year will see him face at least three criminal trials, with an additional fourth case being weighed by the Fulton County District Attorney in relation to alleged racketeering activity in Georgia around the 2020 election. Of the four potential cases, the trial of the now 40 felony charges relating to the mishandling of classified documents, which is being prosecuted in Miami, Florida, offers the county with the most Trump-friendly jury pool, having the highest percentage of Trump voters in 2020.
The DC-based January 6-related indictment certainly appears the most unfriendly, with Trump capturing only 5.4 per cent of the vote in 2020. Perhaps, if Trump were looking to move that trial to a super-friendly pool for jury selection, better than West Virginia is Roberts County, Texas where Trump carried over 96 per cent of the vote in 2020 and won with the largest margins in both 2016 and 2020.
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University of Sydney NSW 2006
