Could Anthony Albanese be caught up in Trump's new US visa ban?
It's no secret President Donald Trump's reach extends beyond the United States, but a key element of his second presidency could have unprecedented consequences on the rest of the world for years to come – and we're not talking about his tariffs.
Speaking with Samantha Selinger-Morris on The Morning Edition podcast, our international and political editor Peter Hartcher delves into the transcontinental influence of Trump's 'Make America Great Again' mindset, and the hidden announcement sparking a new level of global interference not seen from the US since the end of the Cold War.
Click the player or watch the video below to listen to the full episode, or read on for an edited extract of the conversation.
Selinger-Morris: You've written about a monumental announcement … that Donald Trump said on Thursday, about how he plans to export his MAGA revolution to the world. So what did he say?
Hartcher: Until now ... a lot of this stuff has been; you could interpret it as just Trump mouthing off, rather than structured into government policy. But on Thursday, US time, last week, the administration notified the Congress that they were going to create a new office within the State Department.
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They gutted, they cut, by something like 80 per cent the existing Bureau Of Human Rights ... and they have created something called the Office of Natural Rights, which is a new thing, new phenomenon. And it seems that this is the vehicle by which [they] will spread their values abroad through the State Department and its machinations.
The Office of Natural rights is going to be opposed to digital censorship, as they call it, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance.
The one that Marco Rubio has most emphasised in the last couple of weeks in an interview in the US was the right of countries to … come up with their own definitions of free speech.
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