{
  "name": "Opinion | The Trump Effect Hits Australia",
  "url": "https://www.wsj.com/opinion/labor-wins-big-in-australia-a9885583?mod=opinion_lead_pos3",
  "ogResult": {
    "ogTitle": "Opinion | The Trump Effect Hits Australia",
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    "ogUrl": "https://www.wsj.com/opinion/labor-wins-big-in-australia-a9885583?mod=opinion_lead_pos3",
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  "ogHTML": "So much for the global MAGA movement. For the second time in two weeks, a Western democracy has taken a political turn to the left. On Saturday Australia followed Canada in handing a new mandate to the center-left party in power.\n\nThe victory in Australia was especially sweeping, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party won one of the largest majorities in its history. What many expected to be a close election turned into a rout as voters moved away from the Liberal Party opposition coalition in nearly every corner of the country. The Labor sweep was large enough that Liberal leader Peter Dutton lost the seat he’d held for 24 years in Queensland.\n\nLocal issues were dominant, especially the cost of housing. The Liberals focused on energy prices, but younger voters in particular moved to Labor. The mood of the electorate favored change, but the Liberals never capitalized with an economic agenda with broad appeal. They focused instead on culture-war issues that didn’t have the same salience as they did last year in the U.S.\n\nDonald Trump wasn’t a direct issue in the campaign, but the shock of his tariffs against allies like Australia was certainly a backdrop. Behind in the polls only a few weeks ago, Mr. Albanese positioned himself to benefit from a nationalist backlash and economic uncertainty as Australians reacted against the appearance of a bullying U.S.\n\nAustralia has a free-trade pact with the U.S., but that hasn’t spared the ally from Mr. Trump’s 10% unilateral tariff on all goods and 25% import tax on steel and aluminum. He also threatened a tariff on Australian beef. Mr. Dutton rejected any connection to Mr. Trump in the final weeks of the campaign, but he was on defense on the question.\n\nMr. Albanese will now be able to govern from a new position of political strength, especially as he negotiates with Mr. Trump. The Prime Minister is likely to continue close security ties with the U.S., and he’ll try to maintain smooth relations with China, which is Australia’s largest export market.\n\nThis is one way in which Mr. Trump’s tariff shock and rhetorical attacks on allies are having far more than economic consequences. They are causing democratic electorates around the world to question America’s reliability, which at least for now helps politicians who sound like nationalists in those countries.\n\nSteve Bannon may imagine a global MAGA wave based on the model of Viktor Orban in Hungary. At least in Canada and Australia, the effect has been the opposite.\n\nCopyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8\n\nAppeared in the May 5, 2025, print edition as 'Labor Wins Big in Australia'.",
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