SYDNEY: Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on close ally Australia are “not the act of a friend” and will hurt the two nations’ relationship, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Thursday.
Australia will however not retaliate against the announced 10-percent tariff with its own trade duties, the prime minister said.
“This is not the act of a friend,“ Albanese told a news conference after Trump’s tariff announcement, saying one in four Australian jobs depended on trade.
The centre-left Australian leader, who faces a tightly contested general election on May 3, said Australia charged nothing on US imports and should face zero US tariffs.
“These tariffs are not unexpected, but let me be clear, they are totally unwarranted,“ he said.
The United States has been Australia's strongest military ally since World War II, and the two countries have joined with Britain in a deal to provide Australia's navy with stealthy nuclear-powered submarines.
But the new measures could change how people see their relationship, Albanese said.
“The Australian people have every right to view this action by the Trump administration as undermining our free and fair trading relationship and counter to the shared values that have always been at the heart of our two nations long-standing friendship,“ he said.
“This will have consequences for how Australians see this relationship,“ the Australian leader added.
Australian blue-chip stocks dipped nearly two percent in early trade as one of the first global markets reacted to Trump's trade action.
ANZ Bank agribusiness analyst Michael Whitehead said Australia had, in some ways, gotten off lightly.
“Ten percent on Australian beef at the moment, it’s better than a lot of people were expecting -- or less worse, let’s call it,“ he told AFP.
“And arguably 10 percent is a figure that can to some degree be absorbed at different points along the supply chain.
Announcing the tariffs, Trump said Australians were “wonderful people” but accused them of banning US beef while exporting billions of dollars worth of their own beef to America.
“They don’t take any of our beef,“ he said.
About 4.5 percent of all the beef eaten in America is Australian, and that largely goes into burgers, the ANZ analyst said.
