Australia's blind backing of the US is in effect supporting US aggression against China while we are dependant on for our $30 billion of annual trade surplus and 40% of our exports. Even with the China trade surplus we are continually running a trade deficit on aggrigate and if China decides to take a page out of Trump's mercantile book, then we will be lumbered with $30 billion trade deficit .Will Uncle Sam take this extra $30 billion of Iron ore, coal , LNG and food. Pigsass he will!
We should sit back during the remaining 2. years of the Trump regime and in Trumps words, put Australia and Aussie interests FIRST, not that of a deranged US President.
The South China artificial islands is China's poverty pack answer to the US aircraft carriers in the area. The US is in the process of launching a further 4 nuclear aircraft carriers at $15 Billion USD a pop. The first is on sea trials off the coast of Maryland today.
Just Imagine if China were to be patrolling the Pacific within cooey of California with a flotilla of nuclear aircraft carriers, warships and submarines
not to mention space festooned with Star Wars who knows what? Well that's precisely what the US is doing to China.
We have to be realistic here and be careful that we don't bight the hand that feeds us.
IMO, our only way to reduce our economic dependance on China is to process our iron ore, alumina and base metals here at home to the level that
we can diversify trade away from China thereby minimising our current predicament: that is being economically dependant on China and being
militarily dependant on its arc enemy, the USA.
Do I hear the Right Wing Uncle Sam apologists say that we have to back the USA to the hilt and at the same time that we can't afford to process
our minerals here in AUS to diversify trade to non-China world markets? We can afford a silly NBB at $80 billion which will be obsolete in a decade
but we can't afford to run a railway track from Emerald to the WA's iron ore belt to connect our coking coal with our iron ore and position Australia
to be the global steel maker. This is not rocket science , for God's sake; our forefathers forged theist-west Nullambour line 150 years ago with pick and shovel and hard yakka!
We have to wake up as a country, shed our Colonial yoke and compete favourably in a global market (not global wars)
