Australia rules out reciprocal move on America after Trump proceeds with steel taxes
SYDNEY — Australia will not impose reciprocal tariffs on the United States, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday, after President Donald Trump ruled out exemptions or exceptions for all countries on steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trump said in February he would “give great consideration” to exempting Australia from the tariffs in view of the US annual trade surplus with the country, following a phone call with Albanese.
However, on Tuesday the White House announced that the previously planned 25 percent tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum products into the US from all countries would take effect on Wednesday.
Albanese said the decision by the Trump administration was “entirely unjustified … and against the spirit of our two nations’ enduring friendship and fundamentally at odds with the benefit of our economic partnership.”
But he said imposing reciprocal tariffs on the US would only push up prices for Australian consumers and spur inflation.
“Tariffs and escalating trade tensions are a form of economic self-harm, and a recipe for slower growth and higher inflation. They are paid by the consumers,” Albanese told reporters.
During his first presidential term, Trump exempted Australia from US tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Albanese said he would continue to lobby the US administration for a reprieve. He said he had requested a phone call with Trump but would not travel to the United States to meet the president.
“I’ll be sorting out Australia’s interests here,” he said.
While the tariffs will directly affect Australian metal producers, they will indirectly hurt miners that produce the raw materials used in metals manufacturing, said Scott French, an economics professor at the University of New South Wales.
“But due to the complexity of global supply chains, it’s hard to predict precisely where the impact will be greatest, but the overall effect is going to be negative,” French said.
A key US security ally in the Indo-Pacific, Australia is a small global exporter of steel although it is the world’s largest exporter of the main steelmaking raw material iron ore.
Australian steel and aluminum exports to the US represent less than 0.2 percent of the total value of the country’s annual exports and they are not in the top 10 products Australia sells to the United States, Albanese said.
