Australian farmers are anxiously ready to listen to whether or not $6.2bn in meat exports might be hit within the subsequent spherical of Trump tariffs, as Anthony Albanese says the combat to reverse American imposts on metal and aluminium may final months.
Amid escalating fears of a world commerce struggle that might hit exporting nations akin to Australia significantly arduous, the chief government of Cattle Australia (CA), Chris Parker, stated he was “extremely concerned by the protectionist comments from the US president regarding potential implementation of tariffs on agricultural products”.
“Promoting free trade and market access is a fundamental issue for CA, and any new initiative that is a barrier to international trade is something that we will vigorously oppose on behalf of Australia’s beef producers,” Parker stated in a press release.
Parker stated whereas he had been carefully following the quickly evolving scenario within the US “for some time”, the lack of understanding made it unimaginable to estimate the potential hit to the trade.
“Australia has worked hard to gain market access and negotiate trade agreements around the world, which provides the beef export sector with some resilience – we do not want to see that compromised,” he stated.
The Australian Nationwide College honorary professor and non-resident fellow on the Lowy institute, Jenny Gordon, described Donald Trump’s tariffs as “bonkers”, however agreed retaliation would solely harm Australians extra.
“To take a generous view of Trump – which I know is very hard to do – he is actually trying to respond to an American constituency who feels really harmed by the neo-liberal economic growth agenda that’s been going on over there for the last three, four decades,” Gordon stated.
“But his policy solutions are bonkers because they won’t work. They’re internally inconsistent. So on one hand, he says we’re going to have all these tariffs to make all this tariff revenue to be able to cut taxes – noting that the tax cuts are for the rich. At the same time, he says we’re going to onshore everything. So America will produce everything at home. Either have lots of tariff revenue, or you’re producing everything at home – you don’t get both.
“Then the other problem is, even if you are producing everything at home – and the US conceivably can do that, unlike Australia – they’ll be a lot poorer. So the US is really shooting themselves in the foot.”
Gordon, a former chief economist on the Division of International Affairs and Commerce, stated retaliatory tariffs would merely result in Australians paying extra for imported items.
She argued the most suitable choice could be to make use of the World Commerce Organisation to mount a unified defence of free commerce alongside different trade-reliant nations, akin to South Korea, Japan and even China.
The USA is Australia’s primary worldwide marketplace for beef, lamb and goat meat. Australian producers offered $6.2bn in beef and meat to the US in 2024, or almost 30% of the $39bn complete in that 12 months.
Meat is the second largest export to the US after gold, adopted by $1.9bn in pharmaceutical gross sales (which incorporates merchandise from well-known corporations akin to CSL and Cochlear).
As compared, aluminium and metal exports to the US – which have been slapped with 25% US tariffs this week – have been collectively price $812m in 2024, in line with ANZ evaluation.
The Albanese authorities this week ramped up its rhetoric after Trump’s choice to go forward with larger taxes on steel exports, regardless of official efforts to safe an identical exemption received in 2018 in the course of the president’s earlier time period.
The trade minister, Ed Husic, this week branded Trump’s tariffs on Australian metal and aluminium a “dog act” however enterprise teams have backed the federal government’s dedication to not observe in Canada and China’s wake and retaliate to American commerce aggression.
Albanese on Thursday preached endurance, saying, “The last time around it took many months of negotiations and lobbying in order to achieve an outcome.”
“We’ll continue to advocate over coming days and weeks, and if need be, months as well, to put our strong position. What we won’t do is to punish Australians by lifting prices, which is what tariffs would do,” Albanese informed ABC radio.
The three states that drive beef and sheep meat manufacturing and export are Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales.
The overall supervisor of worldwide markets at Meat & Livestock Australia, Andrew Cox, stated the pink meat trade “supports free and fair trade” and that the US is “a highly valued and long-term trading partner”.
“We are watching the trade environment very closely and are avoiding speculation about any tariffs that would drive up prices of food,” Cox stated.
