Former Labor minister Bill Shorten says the government should “push back” harder on Donald Trump by slapping our own “dollar-for-dollar” tariffs on American products, in retaliation for those placed on Australian steel and aluminium.
Governments worldwide and global markets are still reeling from the dizzying array of tariffs and trade barriers enacted by Trump in the first months of his new presidency. Confirmation this week that Australia would not receive a highly anticipated exemption from steel and aluminium tariffs was a blow to the Albanese government on the eve of the federal election, after weeks of high-level negotiations with the Trump administration.
Shorten on Friday urged the government to push harder, telling Channel Seven: “I’m confident this government, and I think all reasonable Australians, will say at a certain point, ‘You push us, we push you.’ It’s as simple as that.”
“If people don’t want to play by the rules, you’ve got to stand up and be counted.”
Senior government sources said discussions would continue on steel and aluminium, in hopes of having the decision reversed in future, but attention is also turning to how Australia could be affected by possible future US tariffs on sectors like agriculture and medicine. Australian farmers are anxiously waiting to hear whether meat exports will be hit in the next round of tariffs.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said this week Australian officials had put forward “a range of propositions” to the US, but would not elaborate. The foreign minister, Penny Wong, indicated on Wednesday that part of those discussions had focused on critical minerals access, saying diplomats had “looked at all those things that the Trump administration had indicated were of value”.
Government ministers have long focused on the value of minerals like lithium, copper, nickel and cobalt, which are in abundance in Australia and important for new products like wind turbines, electric vehicles and batteries. The Trump administration has publicly spoken of its desire to secure Ukrainian supplies of critical minerals as part of peace deal negotiations with Russia.
The resources minister, Madeleine King, told the ABC on Friday that Australian minerals were in high demand from the US, but appeared to threaten giving access to other countries instead.
“We would very much like to have a partnership with the US, but if they don’t want to do that, then that’s up to them and we’ll continue to work with other nations as well,” King told the ABC.
The Coalition’s trade spokesperson, Kevin Hogan, also said critical minerals should be part of negotiations with Trump, but went further by suggesting the Aukus submarines deal should be included in discussions.
“We have the $800m of Aukus cheque that [defence minister] Richard Marles just went over and threw on the table as part of the deal with Aukus. So, listen, we actually believe we have more leverage points with America now than when we got the exemption a few years ago,” he told ABC Radio National.
On Channel Seven’s Sunrise, Shorten said he worried about effects on other sectors. His comments carry significant weight, as he was a senior figure in the Labor government, as former leader and a cabinet minister until his retirement from politics only seven weeks ago.
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“It’s steel and aluminium today. Is it agricultural and farming tomorrow? At some point we have to send a message to President Trump … that if you do something to us, we’ll do it back to you. We cannot be pushed around,” Shorten said.
“Australia might be a bit smaller than America, but we’re not a soft mark and we need to consider putting everything on the table, as I’m sure the government will be, to fight back.”
Asked what that should include, Shorten said: “if they keep putting tariffs on all of our goods, we’ve got to reciprocate dollar-for-dollar, tariff-for-tariff. I don’t think we’re there yet.”
“At a certain point the people you’re negotiating with have to think you’ve got be an alternative, they’ve got to think that you mean business.”
But his former colleague, education minister Jason Clare, appearing on Sunrise soon after Shorten, said he didn’t agree.
“If we were to retaliate and jack up tariffs here, this would be like poking ourselves in the other eye. It would increase prices for Aussies. That’s the last thing that we want to do,” he said.
Referring to the government’s work in easing trade barriers with China, Clare said the better option would be to diversify trade relationships and find new markets, as well as seeking to “work professionally, behind the scenes with that country, until they see the errors of their ways, and we get those products back into those markets”.
