Mr Rudd, now the president of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York, said Prime Minister Scott Morrison should forcefully urge Mr Trump to strike a trade deal with China when he visits the US next month.
He also warned that Australia risks stumbling into a war with Iran if the Morrison government, as is expected, joins a US-led maritime coalition in the Persian Gulf.
“The rubber is about to hit the road when it comes to the US-China trade war and its direct impact on the sluggish Australian economy,” Mr Rudd said in an interview in New York with The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
“If I was Prime Minister Morrison looking towards a state visit in Washington in September, there is one core interest for Australia: to argue to Mr Trump as powerfully as possible, in confidence, that he should pull his horns in and get this done.
For a president who prides himself on the art of the deal, Mr Trump doesn’t seem to be very good at sealing a deal with the Chinese.
Kevin Rudd
“Otherwise there will be profound economic consequences for Australia.”
Mr Rudd, whose views on China are keenly sought by top US politicians and policy experts, said the prospects of the two superpowers striking a trade deal before Christmas were increasingly bleak.
“I have consistently said that a deal is more probable than not by the end of the year because it is in the fundamental economic interests of both countries,” he said.
“But after what Trump has just done with his latest tariff announcement and the declaration on currency manipulation I now think the chances are under 50 per cent.
“For a president who prides himself on the art of the deal, Mr Trump doesn’t seem to be very good at sealing a deal with the Chinese.”
Mr Rudd said he agreed with former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers that the world “may well be at the most dangerous financial moment since the 2009 financial crisis”.
The latest GDP figures showed the Australian economy growing at its slowest rate since the global financial crisis of 2008.
I’d tell the Americans to jump in the lake if that was me.
Kevin Rudd
Rudd blasted the Trump administrations’s determination, on Monday local time, that China is manipulating its currency for an unfair trade advantage as “dumb, dumb, dumb”.
“It doesn’t make sense in terms of any analysis of how the Chinese central bank authorities have managed the Renminbi for many years,” he said.
“It’s even dumber as part of a negotiating strategy on trade.
“Deliberately provocative actions like this from the US only deepen the hostility to the US among the Chinese leadership and make it harder to secure the trade deal Trump says he wants.”
The article was originally posted in the Sydney Morning Herald.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/australia-at-real-risk-of-recession-and-a-hot-war-with-iran-warns-kevin-rudd-20190808-p52f4p.html
