The term “economic security” is having a bit of a moment. While generally unheard of a few years ago, the past three Australian budget speeches have all mentioned economic security and this year, the Australian government announced $38.9 million in funding to increase economic security and resilience and countries around the world are starting to move beyond free trade or investment deals to ink economic security deals. What is economic security? How does it relate to issues like the Iran war and competition with China? What can allies and partners do to bolster their economic security?
This year, the United States Studies Centre has joined forces with the UK High Commission to run two track 1.5 workshops on economic security – one in London and one here in Sydney. Olivia O’Sullivan, Chatham House Director of the UK in the World Programme and Hayley Channer, USSC Director of Economic Security joined the USSC Briefing Room podcast to discuss key findings from these closed-door discussions. This podcast was recorded in May, before the UK special election.

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Produced by: Elliott Brennan

Music by Dan Phillipson, licensed through PremiumBeat

From online chatbots to enormous data centres, it is increasingly difficult to ignore artificial intelligence in our daily lives. Do governments still stand a chance to shape the future of AI development? What could Australia’s data centre boom mean for the nation’s energy grid? Does Australia have a role to play when it comes to the Indo-Pacific’s regional AI capabilities?

Director of Strategic Technologies at the United States Studies Centre Olivia Shen, and Research Associate in Strategic Technologies Johanna Lim joined the USSC Briefing Room to answer these questions.

Last month the Trump administration submitted the largest defence budget request in history – US$1.5 trillion, which is a 40% increase from the prior year. At the same time, the administration is seeking to circumvent Congress’ ‘power of the purse’ through various legislative manoeuvres, effectively expanding the powers of the executive branch.

What can the budget request tell us about the Trump administration’s defence priorities? How are they changing the balance of powers through the budget process? Are these changes likely to be long-lasting or easily reversable?

Research Fellow Tom Corben and Senior Research Associate Esther Soulard recently published an explainer: Trump, Congress and the battle for the defence budget and they sat down with Director of Engagement and Impact Mari Koeck on the podcast to discuss.

Subscribe to the USSC Briefing Room on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.

Produced by: Elliott Brennan

Music by Dan Phillipson, licensed through PremiumBeat