Want Donald Trump to lower the tariffs on your exports to US markets? Easy. Offer him money. Lots of it. As the New York Times explained yesterday (in a story headlined “Trump’s Demand to Trading Partners: Pledge Money or Get Higher Tariffs) South Korea bought its way to a 10% reduction in its tariff rate by offering to spend $350 billion on US investments, and to purchase $100 billion of liquified natural gas.
South Korea is not the only country to make such pledges. Japan said it would establish a $550 billion fund for investments in the United States. The European Union indicated that its companies were poised to invest at least $600 billion. To trade experts, the commitments raise the question of whether Mr. Trump is negotiating with trading partners or trade hostages.
One can only hope that the New Zealand diplomats and corporate leaders heading to Washington to beg for leniency on our 15% tariff rate do realise that paying Trump off with large amounts of protection money is the only way to grease the tariff wheel. Think of those billions we recently set aside for new defence spending. Perhaps a few billions committed to Lockheed Martin or Raytheon or General Dynamics might knock a few points off the tariff rate?
Keep this scam in mind if, by some miracle, our tariff rate does get reduced. It won’t be because of Winston Peters’ diplomatic wizardry, or Christopher Luxon’s innate charm.It will be because we succumbed to a shakedown by the Mafioso-in-Chief, and paid him off. Makes one wonder…how high would be we willing to bid for a tariff cut?
New Movie, Same Actors
Previously on AUKUS, Death From Below…back in 2021, Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison hatched a secret defence pact. The core narrative involved the deployment of a fleet of nuclear submarines to negate the threat he inscrutable Chinese allegedly pose to everything that Australia holds dear: everything from shrimps on the barbie to the rightful dominance of Euro-American civilisation over the heathen hordes of Asia, a threat that’s as old as Fu Manchu himself.
In this week’s episode… in a surprising story twist, it looks as if the fabled Second Pillar of AUKUS (consisting of quantum technology, hypersonics, underwater drones and other James Bond stuff) might have more chance of becoming a reality than the Pillar One that begat it. Basically, AUKUS is/was a reward to the nation of little Aussie battlers for faithful services rendered to Washington. In return, the US agreed to equip Australia with a fleet of super silent Virginia-class nuclear subs to update Canberra’s ageing submarine fleet. Keen as mustard, Scott Morrison cancelled an existing submarine contract with France, at great expense.
Alas, the story hasn’t worked out the way the US had promised in the trailer. Due to the low annual rates of productivity in American shipyards, the US Navy and Australia can’t both get these new submarines in a timely fashion.
The key risk to AUKUS is that the Americans fail to manufacture enough new Virginia-class boats to enable them to transfer up to five vessels to Australia. The required production rate for that to happen is 2.3 Virginia-class subs per year. Last year, the production rate was below 1.2, and it has never exceeded 2 at any stage in the life of the programme.
How come? There are many things to blame:
Admiral Jonathan Rucker, the programme executive for the Virginia-class boats, [has] told Congress that workforce was the main issue. “Our 2024 annual production rate of Virginia-class submarines per year was 1.13 compared to our need of 2.0. The main causes for this are workforce challenges, material and supplier delays, and shipbuilder facilities and infrastructure issues, all of which are driving cost increases and schedule delays.”
Under Donald Trump, America’s needs always come first. Therefore, it will now be many years (at best) beyond the initial 2034 delivery dates before Australia finally gets its hot new mega-expensive submarine deterrent, long after any Chinese threat to Taiwan has been done and dusted. Oh, and Taiwan is a key reason why Elbridge Colby, Trump’s defence policy mastermind has been stalling on AUKUS:
After taking the post [at the Pentagon] Colby told his British counterparts that the Royal Navy should focus on threats from Russia and leave the U.S. Navy to lead in the western Pacific….Colby also helped trigger a review of former President Joe Biden’s multibillion-dollar U.S.-U.K.-Australia submarine pact, out of concern that the Australians might not deploy U.S.-provided submarines during a U.S.-led campaign on Chinese forces in the event of an assault on Taiwan.
In effect, Colby was saying that Australia (with New Zealand tagging along behind) can’t be relied on to go to war with China over Taiwan when expected to do so by Washington. Plainly, if New Zealand is to be allowed into AUKUS, we will similarly need to demonstrate our willingness to take orders from further up the operational chain of command.. and ultimately, that means from Generalissimo Donald Trump, the AUKUS commander in chief.
Are we really going to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on defence, in order to be marched into WW3 by Donald Trump? Looks that way.
Footnote: Reportedly, we are still very, very annoyed at the Cook Islands for not telling us about the deals with China they announced in February. So much so that we skipped attending their 60th birthday celebrations this week. Talk about a double standard. AUKUS is/was a secret deal struck with the US ,whereby nuclear submarines would pass through Pacific waters en route to intimidating China – but we never told Pacific leaders beforehand, let alone sought their feedback. They only found out about AUKUS on the news.
You get the picture. The Cook Islands and Vanuatu are supposed to notify us ahead of time and get our stamp of approval before signing up to any deals with China. Yet at the same time, the neo-colonial powers can do whatever secret military deals they like with the US that affect the region, and tell Pacific nations about it only after the fact.
Footnote Two: There is a further story twist in the AUKUS saga. The original band of brothers (Biden, Johnson, Morrison) have all left the political scene. Vladimir Putin though, has changed things for Britain. In the UK’s Integrated Defence Review back in 2021, Boris Johnson had happily embraced Biden’s “Indo-Pacific tilt” as being the UK’s strategic priority as well. Not any more. As Keir Starmer recently stressed, the UK’s defence spending priority is now a “NATO first” strategy aimed at countering the threat posed by Russia to Ukraine, and to the rest of Europe. Meaning: the “UK” part of AUKUS has virtually left the building.
What is left behind? An old story line is being revived. The former team of the US, Australia and New Zealand are back in combat fatigues, and preparing to kick China’s ass. To all intents, AUKUS is an ANZUS reboot, but one that’s been shorn of New Zealand’s old anti-nuclear misgivings. Luxon, Peters, and Defence Minister Judith Collins now seem more than happy for New Zealand to be actively engaged with a nuclear deterrent that projects its force far beyond our shores. Oh, we’ll say we’re in it only for the high-tech spin-offs. But you can bet that our access to those good things will be conditional on us agreeing to the rest of it.
No doubt, some woke generals will want Japan on board for diversity reasons, to give the pact more credibility in the capitals of Asia. But to repeat: there should be no doubt about would be the boss. In the new JANZUS War Room, there will be no room for “independent” foreign policy. All of the key operational decisions will be made in Washington. USA, USA! We’ve all seen that movie.
Luther Reborn ( again and again)
Talking of reboots…In the early to mid 1970s, the sweet and soulful lover man Luther Vandross (1951-2005) was an inescapable presence. The recent mega-hit “Luther” tribute track by Kendrick Lamar and SZA drew creatively on the classic 1973“If This World Were Mine” duet by Vandross and Cheryl Lynn, a song that Marvin Gaye had originally written for the doomed love of his life, Tammi Terrell.
OK. So we have the Gaye/Terrell duet as radically re-interpreted by Lynn and Vandross, a version that in turn was sampled and lovingly re-imagined by Kendrick Lamar and SZA. Here’s the Vandross/Lynn version :
And here’s the long version of the Kendrick Lamar/SZA revamp, which ends with a lengthy Vandross/Lynn sample :
It doesn’t end there. Last week, the alt-folk musicians Sam Beam (aka Iron & Wine) and Ben Bidwell of Band of Horses released an Americana version of “Luther.” At the very least, they deserve some points for trying: