Gina Rinehart lauds Donald Trump as model for world leaders, plays down trade war concerns

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has lauded Donald Trump as “incredibly patriotic and courageous”, and a model for other world leaders, while playing down the prospect of a global trade war that could harm Australia should the former Republican president win this week’s knife-edge presidential election.

Mrs Rinehart, who is in the US to lend support to Mr Trump and is expected to attend his election night party in Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday AEDT, said America was “at a crossroads” that “matters to the world”.

“I’m still nervous, but very much I am hoping for a Trump victory,” she told The Australian.

Mrs Rinehart, stressing her own longstanding opposition to tariffs, said she didn’t expect a future Trump administration to impose uniform tariffs across all nations, as some economists fear, rather using them as a negotiating tool.

“I think if the president imposed tariffs, they may be more individualised to help Americans, and not just the same tariffs across everything,” she said.

The Republican presidential candidate has variously promised to impose tariffs up to 60 per cent on Chinese imports into the US, and 10 per cent tariff on other nations, in a bid to slash America’s chronic trade deficit.

“He understands if you include policies that welcome investment, like less government tape, less tax, you get investment back, you bring growth, you raise living standards,” Mrs Rinehart said.

“The world would be better off with more leaders like Trump, who understand such truths,” she said, adding that she believed Kamala Harris would “be more socialist, and worse than (Joe) Biden”.

Australia’s richest person, fresh from acquiring significant new gas assets from MinRes for more than $1bn, said her home country was “in a mess” and faced an “Argentina moment” unless it lessened its regulatory and tax burden.

“The more we do to make investment unwelcome, the more chance we have of going the direction Argentina once did,” she said, suggesting too many Australians took for granted their high living standards, which were ultimately underpinned by the nation’s resource exports.

“When people start experiencing blackouts and brownouts, which, yes, I see on the horizon, because we’re closing or not maintaining so many of our power stations, they will understand … Nuclear is great although, let’s face it, it’s going to take a long time, there’ll be lots of tape and approvals.”

The executive chairwoman of Hancock Prospecting has become a vehement critic of Australian economic policy: in a keynote speech on the Gold Coast in April, Mrs Rinehart praised China’s energy, economic, defence and education policies, while warning that the government’s net-zero emissions policies risked destroying Australia’s world-class agricultural sector.

Asked which other world leaders deserved praise, Mrs Rinehart selected Argentina’s new President, Javier Milei, Canadian Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi – “very pro India”.

“Prime Minister Modi brought in a valuable lesson for Australia: after (Indian) bureaucrats had enjoyed their taxpayer money for years, they had to write a letter to the people of India about what they had done to benefit India; they had to include a current photo, home phone, and home address,” she said.

“Now think of that culture change: all of a sudden bureaucrats had to realise they better do some things to be able to justify what they did for the country, while enjoying years of taxpayers’ money and taxpayer-provided benefits.”