As Donald Trump appears to inch closer to being US president for a second time, a report has identified the nations most at risk if he returns to the White House – with one expert believing Australia would likely dodge the rebooted president’s “fire and fury”.

The Economist Intelligence‘s Trump Risk Index examines the global ramifications of a Trump victory, highlighting that the US election in November “will be a pivotal event for the global economy and geopolitics”.

“Our overall risk score is based on an assessment of vulnerability across three areas – trade, immigration and security – where we would expect important policy changes under Mr Trump,” the report, released on Friday (Australian time) said.

“US allies and partners have among the highest overall exposure to policy changes under Mr Trump, as they have the deepest trade, security and cultural links with the US.”

It said the US’s closest partners, including Mexico, Costa Rica and Germany, would have the highest overall exposure to policy changes under Trump.

EIU’s Trump Risk Index suggests that US allies and close trade partners—such as Mexico and Germany—are among those with the most to worry about. Read our latest report to learn more about the potential policy shifts under a second Trump presidency: https://t.co/iKKbaijfpZ pic.twitter.com/wC7NsMNaAz

— Economist Intelligence: EIU (@TheEIU) July 12, 2024

AUKUS and Australia

Australia has a long-running and close relationship with the US, brought even closer by the signing of the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.

Associate professor David Smith, an expert on American politics at the University of Sydney, said that aside from one brief period – when Trump became aware of a surplus of aluminium sales to the US – Australia was never the target of his ire during his 2016-20 presidency.

“The reality is that Australia doesn’t cross Trump’s consciousnesses very much when he thinks about allies, particularly those who make him angry because he thinks they are freeloaders,” he said.

“He doesn’t seem to see Australia as a strategically important ally in the same way he sees the Middle Eastern allies and part of this is because Trump is oriented around ‘great power politics’.”

He said AUKUS had “the type of structure that Trump would likely approve of”.

“It involves the United States selling a lot of military hardware to Australia, and this is how Trump envisages alliances should look like,” Smith said.

“It’s other countries paying for the privilege of American weapons, know-how and protection; it more closely integrates Australia with the US military in the Pacific and creates American jobs in military manufacturing.”

The AUKUS deal aims to deliver nuclear-powered submarines to Australia while strengthening technology sharing between Britain, the US and Australia.

The AUKUS submarine deal and partnership was signed in 2021. Photo: AAP

Immigration

The report highlights the changing nature of US trade negotiations, foreign policy and immigration policy under Trump.

Smith said that predicting how foreign policy and trade would change was difficult because of the factors involved.

“There are so many actors involved, not just the president of the United States and the leaders of different countries,” he said.

“Trump has made a lot of noise about NATO, how he wants an immediate settlement to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, how he would probably give a freer hand to Israel and all those things could have an immediate impact.”

He said that one major difference would be the handling of immigration and the US border.

“What he is promising is extreme: Deporting every undocumented immigrant in the United States, that’s about 11 million people and, in many cases, we are talking about people who have been there for many years,” Smith said.

“My personal view is that this would be devastating not only to the individuals and families involved, but to entire communities and to entire industries, entire sections of the economy that are basically dependent on this labour.”