Donald Trump has confirmed he will speak to the prime minister after Anthony Albanese admitted this week he had recently been unable to reach the US president to talk about trade tariffs.
Australia is angry after being slapped with a 10 per cent tariff on goods exports to the US, and 25 per cent on steel and aluminium exports, by its long-term diplomatic ally.
“They are calling and I will be talking to him, yes,” Mr Trump told reporters at the White House overnight.
The president’s comments were being viewed in a positive light, Labor minister Murray Watt said.
“We have to take him at his word on that and we look forward to being able to continue the engagement we’ve had with the American administration about the tariffs that we think are totally unjustified,” he told Nine’s Today show on Wednesday.
Mr Watt confirmed that Australia’s approaches were being conducted at various levels, including the ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd and department officials, given the Labor government was in caretaker mode ahead of Saturday’s federal election.
“The prime minister spoke to President Trump about these matters some time ago,” Mr Watt said.
“But yeah … we look forward to re-engaging at that level, and we’ll be making a very strong case that these tariffs shouldn’t be applied to Australia.”
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said while Australia wasn’t the only country affected by US tariffs the government was “uniquely well placed” to argue its case for their removal.
“We’ve made it clear we’re engaging wherever we can, whenever we can – obviously, that happens at the highest levels as well,” he told ABC radio.
“We think that those tariffs are unwarranted, we think they’re unwise.
“Treasury modelling … makes it clear we are concerned about the impact on global demand and global growth.”
At the final leaders’ debate of the campaign on Sunday, Mr Albanese said he wasn’t sure if the US president had a mobile when asked if he had his number, before adding that such matters were usually conducted on a more official basis.
However, Liberal senator Michaelia Cash said the fact that Mr Albanese hadn’t been able to get another one-on-one call with Mr Trump showed there was no relationship with the Australian ally under Labor.
“The previous coalition government – which, because of the nature of the relationship that we had – we were successful in getting the exemption from the steel and aluminium tariffs (under the previous Trump administration).
“So after this election we look forward – if we are elected – to speaking with our greatest ally, the United States of America.”
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