One of the major casualties of Trump administration’s brazen efforts to reduce the size of the US federal government is its dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), including a wholesale funding freeze, shutting down the website, and recalling most staff from abroad. The impacts on the world are going to be severe and lasting, but there are many questions and uncertainties: what will be the short-term harm, how will the development sector survive in the medium term, and what will US development policy, and indeed development policy generally, look like over the longer term?

To discuss these issues Darren is once again joined by Bridi Rice, CEO of the Development Intelligence Lab in Canberra to talk through possible futures, what a “MAGA-friendly” development policy might look like, and whether development is simply the latest policy domain to see a convergence between the Trump worldview and that of China.

Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing this episode by Hannah Nelson and Corbin Duncan and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

Bridi Rice (bio): https://www.devintelligencelab.com/team/bridi-rice

Hilltop Hoods (Spotify page): https://open.spotify.com/artist/7dlqUnjoF2U2DkNDMhcgG4

Security Economics (podcast): https://open.spotify.com/show/1jdlbmzM5do3ijANi6NH0w (Spotify)

“The loneliness of Australia is going to be one of many fairly dramatic changes”, says David Rennie towards the end of this utterly absorbing episode.

On Wednesday 12 February I interviewed David Rennie in DFAT’s studio in Canberra. David was visiting Australia for the week, hosted by Asia Society Australia and supported by the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations. David is geopolitics editor at The Economist having recently returned to London after six years living in China as Beijing bureau chief. He launched the Chaguan column on China in that role and last November launched a new column on geopolitics for the newspaper, The Telegram. David joined The Economist in 2007 and in addition to London and Beijing has been based in Brussels and Washington in that time. He is the co-host of the excellent Drum Tower podcast, launched in late 2022.

Our discussion is not about Australia at all, really, but about China and the US under Donald Trump. Rival great powers, but perhaps with an increasingly converging worldview which portends, according to David, loneliness for Australia. This is one of the podcast’s most important episodes of the past few years and I think worth the time for all those interested in international affairs.

Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing this episode by Walter Colnaghi and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.

Relevant links

David Rennie (bio): https://mediadirectory.economist.com/people/david-rennie/

The Economist, The Telegram (column): https://www.economist.com/topics/the-telegram

The Economist, Drum Tower (podcast): https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/drum-tower

Peter Varghese, “Trump’s Gaza grab shows America is no better than China”, Australian Financial Review, 6 February 2025: https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/trump-s-gaza-grab-shows-america-is-no-better-than-china-20250206-p5la0x

Chappell Roan (Spotify page): https://open.spotify.com/artist/7GlBOeep6PqTfFi59PTUUN

Bobby Timmons Trio (Spotify page): https://open.spotify.com/artist/47jpbb07933jSiHmir7yda

The Trump administration has announced 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on China. Recorded only a handful of hours after the news broke, Darren offers a rapid reaction as a mini ‘lecture’ with his initial thoughts.

(Apologies for the change in sound quality early on, which reflect the speed at which we were trying to get this out!)

Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing this episode by Walter Colnaghi and theme music composed by Rory Stenning.