Interview with Vassy Kapelos: Carney's speech 'the most important' since Trump's return: former Australian PM | Power & Politics
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech about a fractured world order continues to reverberate around the globe. Since Carney spoke in Davos on Tuesday, his
address has been grabbing headlines from the US, the UK, Germany, and beyond. And it's won praise from a number of Canada's allies, including all the way across the Pacific in Australia. Malcolm Turnbull is a former Prime Minister of Australia, and he joins me now. Nice to see you, sir. Thanks for coming on.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Yeah, thank you very much.
JOURNALIST: So, Prime Minister Mark Carney issued what some are calling a call to arms really for middle powers, urging them to band together against economic coercion from countries like the United States. He said the rules-based order is over. What do you make of that speech and the Prime Minister's message in Davos?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, it was an outstanding speech. I think one of the most important given in recent times, certainly the most important given since Trump became President for the second time. Carney has the intellect and the eloquence to deliver a speech that I think will be a tipping point, because what he said is we have to be cleareyed about the reality in which we're living. We are living in a might is right world. The United States under Trump will use integration, dependency, reliance as levers to extract advantage. America First was not just a campaign slogan. And so I think it's a really important speech and it's had enormous influence already and will have more influence in the months and years to come.
JOURNALIST: I understand the speech was discussed throughout the Australian Government. Tell me about that. And then you've also said that you want to see your Prime Minister Anthony Albanese deliver something similar. Why do you want to hear that message from your head of government?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, I'd like to hear it from every head of government because I've expressed exactly these sentiments, of course, I'm an ex- head of government, but I've been saying the same thing for some time now. Sucking up to Donald Trump is a mistake. The only way to deal with Trump, or bullies of any kind, is to stand up to them and be strong. Now Mark Carney, very wise, pragmatic man, said of course a middle power like Canada or Australia or any of the European countries by themselves cannot match the United States and in a bilateral negotiation will obviously be outplayed just simply by the size of the US. Hence the need for middle powers to work together. And I was pleased to see that Mark referred to the Trans-Pacific Partnership which was a trade deal that I was able to keep alive when I was PM after Trump pulled out in his first term. I persuaded Shinzo Abe and other leaders including ultimately your PM then Justin Trudeau to stick with it. That is a very big ambitious trade deal, 11 countries, UK has joined making it 12 again. The European Union is seeking to work closely with the TPP. You can see that what we have to do, those of us who still believe in free trade, those of us who still believe that international affairs should be governed by the rule of law, should work together. It's regrettable that the United States is no longer on board with those values. But, we all have to endure the consequences of what happens in Washington or what's decided in Washington, but we don't have a vote in it. So, we just have to accept the world as it is and get on and make sure we defend our interests.
JOURNALIST: Speaking of enduring Trump, you had a run-in with him during your term as Prime Minister and, you know, there was some friction at times between the two of you. And we know that after Carney's speech, Trump sort of lashed out a little bit saying that Canada lives because of the United States. Last night, he rescinded the Prime Minister's invite to be part of this so-called board of peace that could play a role in rebuilding Gaza. Is there not a risk in standing up to someone like Trump? Canada and others could really pay a dear price for this sort of friction.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, you're going to pay a price whichever way you go. Look at the Europeans. Last year at Trump's Golf Resort in Scotland, they rolled over in a really embarrassingly sycophantic way on tariffs. It was kind of excruciating to watch really, and controversial within Europe. Emmanuel Macron was very unhappy with it. He's very much on the same page as Mark Carney I might add, and has spoken very eloquently himself. And so what did the Europeans get as a result of that? They got threats, bullying, threats of tariffs, to extract Greenland from Denmark, canvassing military action - all of these threats. And Trump has backed back down on Greenland, at least for the time being, and he has done so because leaders like Mark Carney have stood up to him. So I learnt this lesson when I dealt with Trump in his first term. I had a big row with him, stood up to him, and my relationship with him from then on was a very practical and constructive one. You see that the thing about Trump is he is a bully. That's like saying the pope's a Catholic. It's not a criticism. He will use bullying and intimidate people where he can to get his way. If they keep on giving into him, he just does more bullying. If you stand up to him, then he'll negotiate. Look how Xi Jinping has played things. The great trade war against China, you'd have to say at this stage, China is ahead. Certainly China did not back down. They said, "All right, how do you feel about cutting off the rare earths? How do you feel about that?" And the Americans had to back off. So look, this is a might is right world. It’s not the world we want. It’s not going to be as prosperous as the world we had. But these are the cards that have been dealt to us. And I think Carney, as I said, very eloquently, very intelligently has been honest about it and then laid forward a route that I think middle powers should pursue. Now can we get our act together? Can the Europeans in particular get their act together, especially on defense? That's a big question.
JOURNALIST: Speaking of China and and other countries that may be considered bullies in the past, Carney has signed what he's calling a strategic partnership with Beijing. There has been this deal brokered where some Chinese electric vehicles can come into Canada in exchange for China dropping some tariffs on some agricultural products of ours and some seafood. You've had some experience with China as well. Are you concerned about the prospect of Canada becoming too intertwined with a regime like Beijing and the Communist Party in China?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, no, I'm not. China is by far our largest trading partner. About a third of all our exports go to China. I think the approach to China, and certainly the approach I followed and what I recommend to others, is you have to be very cleareyed, work out the areas on which you do not wish to cooperate if you like, that say are sensitive from a national security point of view. So for example, my government was the first to ban Chinese tel-com vendors like Huawei from our 5G network. It wasn't personal. It was just risk management. There are areas of industry and the economy in China that they won't allow foreign companies, western companies, to participate in. So, you've just got to work out what your guard rails are. It's like any relationship, you think about it. There are things that you would tell your wife or your husband that you wouldn't tell your colleagues at work. There are things you would tell your colleagues at work that you wouldn't tell somebody sitting next to on the bus. So, we've just got to work out those areas of trust and cooperation. And I think they cover most of the economy, work on those and then maybe over time as trust builds up, that range of areas can increase. But you’ve got to take the…again let's recognise we're not going to change China. The important thing is China doesn't change us. We respect their sovereignty, we expect them to respect ours, and we have to trade with each other in a pragmatic manner. But Xi Jinping of course is on a charm offensive now. The wolf warrior diplomacy which was was a mistake some years ago, they've abandoned, and they will seek to present themselves as a more consistent, more reliable partner than the United States. And certainly they're certainly less erratic, that's for sure.
JOURNALIST: I want to end on what the President, the US President said about NATO allies and countries that contributed to the fight in Afghanistan. You might have seen some of this. He said that the United States has never needed the Transatlantic Alliance, and he accused allies including Australia, including Canada, many others that went to help the US after 9/11. He said that a lot of them stayed a little off the front lines in Afghanistan. I know Australia lost a couple dozen more, three or four dozen, I think it was, troops in Afghanistan. Canada similarly as well. I mean, it's such a sensitive subject. What do you make of the President saying what he said about allies that came to the US as aid?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, it's shocking. It shows that he does not have respect for America's allies. It is disrespectful to those nations, those allied nations, including Canada and Australia, and above all, it is so disrespectful to the soldiers who lost their lives and to their families who still grieve that loss. So, it's an appalling, appalling statement. And just a fact, I mean leaving Canada and Australia to one side, Denmark who from whom he is seeking to expropriate Greenland, actually lost more soldiers in Afghanistan on a per capita basis because it's a small country, than the United States did. So you know how galling do you think it is? What is the message that that sends to the Danes or to American allies everywhere? You know, David Petraeus quite often quotes Winston Churchill who said the only thing worse than fighting a war with allies is fighting a war without them. So,Trump is doing… it's as though he wants to do everything he can to trash the alliances, which have been built up over generations. It's hard…it seems insane really, and certainly it's counterproductive. So, again getting back to Carney's speech, what he's saying there is “Nostalgia is not a strategy’. I've said the same thing “hope is not a strategy”. We can't hope that something is going to change and this will be a blip. I think we have to assume that there has been a sea change in American politics and we've got to adjust ourselves to that. We hope that they change and get back to a more conventional approach in the future, but we can't rely on it. And we have to assume that what we're dealing with is a status quo, a might is right world, a transactional United States, one that will use as Mark says, integration as a lever for subordination and exploitation. So, it's a hard road ahead, but the alternatives are worse…Donald Trump presents us with a bunch of bad options, I'm afraid, and we have to take the least bad ones.
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