Australia protests US plan to impose 12.5 per cent tariffs

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has protested the United States’ plan to impose additional tariffs ranging from 10 to 12.5 per cent on imports from at least 60 countries, including Australia, citing alleged forced labour in production.

“There is an ideological difference where the US government has violated an understanding that has existed for decades—that tariffs do not provide a positive impact for the country implementing them,” Albanese stated, according to an ABC report on Thursday.

Previously, a proposed 10 per cent tariff on Australian imports was overturned by the US Supreme Court last February. Albanese emphasised that any tariffs imposed on Australian exports to the US are “unjustifiable and inconsistent” with the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) binding the two allied nations.

“These tariffs instead increase the cost of goods and services for consumers in the country implementing them… whereas free trade is in the interest of the global economy,” Albanese said. He added that the policy was introduced without prior notice, noting that certainty is a fundamental expectation in international relations between key allies like Australia and the United States.

Concluding his statement, Albanese lamented the shifting dynamics of US policy, which he claims continue to disadvantage trading partners. “It is very unfortunate that a series of rolling decisions—some of which change over time—have a common thread: that the United States is now a proponent of tariff policy,” he said.

Echoing the Prime Minister’s sentiments, Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell also described the proposed US tariffs as “unfair”. The protest was delivered directly during a meeting with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the sidelines of the OECD meeting in Paris on Wednesday night.