US President Donald Trump’s top trade adviser says Australia is “killing” the American aluminium market, in a potential blow to the government’s hopes for an exemption to 25 per cent import tariffs.
The occasion, in front of press in the Oval Office of the White House yesterday morning (AEDT), followed a phone call between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Trump on the subject earlier that day.
Albanese said Trump had agreed to give “consideration” to a potential tariffs exemption.
Later, in the White House, Trump said there would be “no exceptions” on the tariffs, but when directly asked about Australia, he said he would give “great consideration” to the idea of an exemption.
Trump said Albanese was a “very fine man”.
But today, Trump’s senior trade adviser Peter Navarro dealt an apparent blow to the idea in an interview with CNN.
“Australia is just killing our aluminium market,” he said.
“What they do is they just flood our markets after (former US President Joe Biden) gave an agreement that said, ‘don’t flood our markets’.”
He said the US aluminium industry was “on its back” at 50 per cent capacity utilisation rate, compared to 90 per cent in Australia.
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In Trump’s tariff proclamation issued from the White House yesterday, Australia was again criticised.
“The volume of US imports of primary aluminum from Australia has also surged and in 2024 was approximately 103 per cent higher than the average volume for 2015 through 2017,” the document read.
“Australia has disregarded its verbal commitment to voluntarily restrain its aluminum exports to a reasonable level.”
