Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has condemned US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, saying they weren’t “the act of a friend”.
Australian exports to the US will be subject to a “baseline” 10 per cent tariff.
Albanese slammed the tariffs, saying they weren’t unexpected, but were “totally unwarranted”.
“President Trump referred to reciprocal tariffs. A reciprocal tariff would be zero, not 10 per cent,” he said.
“The administration’s tariffs have no basis in logic and they go against the basis of our two nation’s partnership. This is not the act of a friend.”
Albanese said the federal government will not impose reciprocal tariffs.
“We will stand up for Australia. We will continue to make the strongest case for these unjustified tariffs to be removed from our exporters,” he said.
But he also signalled that the Australia-US relationship could suffer under Trump’s presidency.
“The Australian people have every right to view this action by the Trump administration as undermining our free and fair trading relationship and the shared values that have always been at the heart of our two nations’ longstanding friendship,” he said.
“This will have consequences for how Australians see this relationship.”
In his White House announcement on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), Trump signalled he’ll target Australia beef imports.
“Australia bans — and they’re wonderful people, and wonderful everything — but they ban American beef.
“Yet we imported $US3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone.
“They won’t take any of our beef.
“They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers and you know, I don’t blame them but we’re doing the same thing right now starting at midnight tonight, I would say.”
Albanese said the government was determined to build new markets for exporters.
“We’re boosting exports of Australian beef and red meat, expanding trade with the UK, European Union, and Indonesia, and, of course, we have cleared away over $20 billion in trade impediments with China.”
Trade Minister Don Farrell, speaking alongside Albanese, said one result of the tariffs could be a trade deal between Australia and the European Union.
“We all know what happened the last time we had discussions with the Europeans. I think things have changed and the opportunity to have further negotiations about a free trade agreement on better terms than have been previously offered now exists.”
Trump announced earlier his global tariffs would come into effect “from midnight”.
Assuming that’s midnight in Washington DC, that would be 3pm AEDT, 2pm AEST, 2.30pm in South Australia, 1.30pm in the Northern Territory, and noon in Perth.
Not a lot of time for importers or exporters to prepare – although this has been flagged for some time now.
