NICOLA SMITH: Australian and Canadian elections confirm Trump embrace is kiss of death [Video]

After the Australian and Canadian elections, US President Donald Trump’s embrace was “confirmed as the kiss of death”, said former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in the hours after Labor’s overwhelming victory.

The parallels between Labor and Canada’s centre-left Liberals, who were heading for almost certain defeat before an anti-Trump backlash, should not be overstated in Australia’s cost-of-living centred campaign.

But Mr Matteo, a friend of newly elected Anthony Albanese, is correct that for any democratic leader contesting an election under the cloud of mounting global crises, the maverick US President is inevitably the third candidate in the room.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who like Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre lost his seat, did not seek to be a copycat Trump and consistently shut down the suggestion.

But he fell into the trap of touting populist Trump-like policies that appealed to the Coalition’s base but drew obvious comparisons with …