Australia won’t retaliate against ‘unjustified’ US tariffs on steel and aluminum
Australia won’t retaliate against ‘unjustified’ US tariffs on steel and aluminum
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says U.S. tariffs on Australian steel and aluminum are unjustified, but his government will not retaliate with its own tariffs.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/40630983
Yeah, fuck this guy.
Haha, pussies!
Why do most people here seem to agree that Trump's tarrifs are stupid and brash, yet Australia's leadership deeming retaliatory tarrifs would be the same is 'gutless and weak'?
This is just smart leadership on Australia's part. We are a trade surplus partner with USA - meaning we import more from the US than we export, and importantly the targets of the tarriffs are only a small fraction of our exports to the US.
So, to create knee-jerk retaliatory tarrifs on the US for the sake of assisting a very small sliver of our exports would be truly shooting ourselves in the foot.
Have a look at our iron ore export leading markets and look for the USA to see how much we need them: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1149300/australia-leading-iron-ore-export-destinations/
Now add up ALL iron, steel aluminium, and 'ores' from this list of all Aus -> US exports: https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/exports/united-states
Sum total: ~$550mil of our $14.7billion exports to the US in 2024 were aluminium or steel or their ores. So a 25% tarrif on 3.7% of our exports? To a country we have a trade surplus with?
Its not worth us tariffing them, would hurt us far more than we gain, and our top economists agree - saying "retaliatory tarrifs would be an act of self-sabotage" https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-02/treasury-came-armed-with-a-warning-politicians-dragged-them-mud/104995418
Come on Australia, hit us back please. We need to learn a lesson on a global scale.
The Australian leadership is deathly afraid of the CCP. They will suck Trump's balls dry for the sake of national security.
Well, I guess between Canada and Australia, we’ll get to run the experiment on whether the Canuck or cuck approach is the right path.
We're not retaliating with tariffs because nearly every mainstream economist has advised against it, including our own Treasury. Here's the quote from Steven Kennedy, treasury head, at a Senate estimates hearing on 26 February:
For a medium-sized economy such as Australia, there is overwhelming evidence that the use of trade restrictions imposes costs on our consumers and businesses... If Australia were to impose tariffs, we would bear nearly all the cost, given our size and inability to affect the world prices of the goods we import.
We would be shooting ourselves in the foot for the sake of what would essentially amount to little more than a symbolic gesture. We have other, more effective cards beyond tariffs.
It sucks but it is what it is. Being an island nation dependant on imports, we don't have much weight to throw around without self destructing with our already fucked cost of living crisis.
I can see what they're going for. We have a good history of exemptions, and getting another one would be a big win domestically with an election looming. You might think there's no way it will happen, but we do hold some cards, so to speak. I wouldn't be surprised if in more private negotiations they're threatening to close Pine Gap or cancel other cooperative military arrangements.
Retaliatory tariffs just aren't our best option.
if you look at the numbers, Canada's not that far from Australia. they've only instituted a tariff on like 10% of American imports
Huh? Canada retaliated dollar for dollar.
Just wait till we vote in that asshole Peter Dutton, he will just copy Trump and put tariffs on our allies too.
Were just as fucked as you guys are.
Foolish. I’m an American that voted for Harris and still think we deserved to be sanctioned
I would have preferred a harder stance from us on this tbh.
Australia could get annexed by the USA too. The USA already has military bases in Australia. Stand for something or fall for anything.
Clearly some countries didn’t get the memo. Guess it’s time to update the list of limp-wrist cunts for future reference. UK and Australia are really showing their true colours in all this.
It's not our responsibility to damage our own economy for an empty symbolic gesture
Gutless Australian Government
Certainly they can find better sources of metal than shipping it halfway around the world.
So much for the democratic nations coalescing against evil - traitors.
The US imports more metal from Australia than we export. This will just shoot the US in the foot and will further incentivize the plan to build up Australian manufacturing. It makes perfect sense why they wouldn't retaliate.