Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at liberal parliamentary wins in Australia and Canada, Israel expanding its operations in Gaza, and a proposed U.S. tariff on movies filmed abroad.
Anti-Trump Momentum
Incumbent Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won reelection on Saturday, with his center-left Labor Party securing a landslide 85 seats in Parliament, including the seat of conservative opposition leader Peter Dutton. It marks a stunning turnaround for Canberra’s liberal playbook.
“We do not need to beg or borrow or copy from anywhere else,” Albanese said in a victory speech. “We do not seek out our inspiration overseas. We find it right here in our values and in our people.”
Many Aussie voters appeared to view the opposition as too close to the White House, particularly after conservative Sen. Jacinta Price cheered “Make Australia Great Again” in April. Just a month ago, the conservative Liberal Party was on track to win the election. But U.S. President Donald Trump’s America First policies, including hefty tariffs on Australian steel, soured support for Dutton’s coalition. Like Trump, the Liberal Party wants to make cuts to the Education Department, implement tougher immigration restrictions, and defund diversity and inclusion programs.
“In Australia, voters weren’t merely expressing an aversion to Donald Trump,” wrote FP’s Amelia Lester, who is based in Australia. “They were also rejecting ideological extremism of all stripes.”
Australia’s election results mimicked another unexpected center-left victory. Last week, Liberal Party leader Mark Carney secured a landslide win in Canada, cementing Carney’s role as prime minister despite conservative candidate Pierre Poilievre long being the predicted favorite. “Unfortunately for Poilievre, many voters perceive him as too much like Trump,” journalist Justin Ling wrote in a profile of Poilievre last month.
As Lester explained, “Trump’s belligerent nationalism has made it difficult for right-wing politicians elsewhere to ride his coattails without seeming as if they’re betraying their own national interests.”
Unlike Albanese, who never mentioned Trump while on the campaign trail, Carney repeatedly pointed to White House tariffs and sovereignty threats as reasoning for why liberals must maintain control of Ottawa; Carney became interim prime minister in March after controversy-laden Justin Trudeau’s resignation.
In what could also be read as public support for a steady hand amid Trump’s trade war, Singapore’s People’s Action Party won its 14th consecutive election with 87 out of 97 parliamentary seats on Saturday. Singapore has a 300 percent trade-to-GDP ratio.
But Trump’s America First agenda has not hurt all conservative ambitions abroad. Following Carney’s victory, the government of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith proposed legislation to make it easier to hold referendums, which could allow the province to secede from Canada. And on Sunday, far-right candidate George Simion won the first round of Romania’s presidential election rerun with more than 40 percent of the vote. Simion will challenge centrist Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, who secured less than 21 percent, on May 18.
Today’s Most Read
- How Ancient Rome Blew Up Its Own Business Empire by Bret Devereaux
- What Trump’s New Budget Says About U.S. Foreign Policy by Lili Pike and Rishi Iyengar
- Trump Should Rein In Taiwan by Christopher S. Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim
The World This Week
Tuesday, May 6: Trump hosts Carney in Washington.
Wednesday, May 7: Chinese President Xi Jinping begins a four-day visit to Russia.
A papal conclave convenes to choose Pope Francis’s successor.
French President Emmanuel Macron hosts German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Paris.
Thursday, May 8: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hosts Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin in Brussels.
Friday, May 9: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha hosts European foreign ministers in Kyiv on the same day that Moscow hosts Victory Day celebrations.
Macron hosts Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Nancy, France.
Norway hosts a summit of the Joint Expeditionary Force.
Sunday, May 11: Albania holds parliamentary elections.
Monday, May 12: The Philippines holds midterm elections.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva begins a two-day trip to China.
What We’re Following
Orders to occupy Gaza. Israel’s security cabinet on Monday unanimously approved a plan to expand military operations in Gaza. According to one Israeli official, “the plan differs from previous ones by shifting from raid-based operations to the occupation of territory and sustaining it.”
Military chief of staff Eyal Zamir, who recommended the plan, stressed that it would allow for stronger strikes against Hamas to help rescue the remaining hostages still in Gaza. It also calls for the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Gaza’s south, which would likely exacerbate the region’s already dire humanitarian crisis.
The exact timing of implementation is unclear, as is the deadline for how long Israel would occupy the territory; however, Axios reports that Israeli officials have set May 15, during Trump’s planned trip to the Middle East, as the deadline to reach a hostage and cease-fire deal with Hamas before implementing the new plan. Israel resumed intensive attacks on Gaza in March and has since declared around 70 percent of the territory as either a military “red zone” or under evacuation orders; rights groups have repeatedly condemned Israel for stopping humanitarian aid from entering the territory.
Meanwhile, Israel launched airstrikes at Houthi rebel targets in Yemen’s Port of Hodeidah on Monday. The attack came one day after the Iranian-backed proxy group declared a “comprehensive” aerial blockade on Israel and fired a missile that landed near Ben Gurion International Airport. The United States and the United Kingdom have also stepped up attacks on Yemen in recent weeks; a U.S. airstrike last week killed at least 38 people at a Yemeni prison allegedly holding African migrants, according to images reviewed by the Washington Post, though the Post said that was likely an undercount. The Houthis claimed 68 people were killed in that strike.
Tariffs on Hollywood. Trump on Sunday announced that he had directed his administration to begin the process of instituting a 100 percent tariff on movies produced outside the United States, calling foreign incentives to film abroad a “concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.” It is unclear if this duty will apply to movies on streaming services as well as those shown in traditional theaters, and no details have been provided on whether the tariff will be calculated via production costs or box office revenue. Trump told reporters on Monday that he intends to meet with U.S. film industry executives to discuss the idea and “make sure they’re happy with it.”
Almost all major media companies film abroad, and many famous movies have used foreign locations for their sets. According to the Motion Picture Association’s latest economic impact report, the film industry generated a positive U.S. balance of trade for every major market in the world in 2023. On Monday, shares in Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global, and Amazon.com were down. The leaders of Australia and New Zealand responded to Trump’s tariff threat on Monday by promising to advocate for their local industries. (Many Marvel superhero movies are filmed in Australia, and The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies were shot across New Zealand.)
Thwarted attacks. Brazilian police foiled a plot on Saturday to detonate explosives and Molotov cocktails at Lady Gaga’s free concert at Copacabana Beach, officials said on Sunday. The event drew roughly 2.1 million people. Police said the group behind the plot was attempting to recruit teenagers to carry out the attacks, which were reportedly intended to target children and members of the LGBTQ community, of which the pop singer has a large following.
Also on Saturday, authorities in the United Kingdom arrested five Iranian nationals in connection with an alleged terrorist plot to target a “specific premises,” though officials did not publicly disclose the location. British authorities also arrested three other Iranian nationals on Saturday as part of a separate counterterrorism investigation. Officials stressed that they were not linking the two investigations. U.K. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Sunday that the two operations “reflect some of the biggest counter-state threat and counterterrorism operations that we have seen in recent years.”
Odds and Ends
World Brief would like to pour one out for Journalism, the American Thoroughbred that fell short of first place during Saturday’s annual Kentucky Derby horse race. Instead, Sovereignty, who entered the contest with 9-1 odds, clinched the top spot. If the names (and outcomes) are feeling a little too on the nose for you, you’re not alone.
The post Albanese Wins Landslide Victory in Australian Election appeared first on Foreign Policy.
