Australia is hoping to follow in an ally’s footsteps after Donald Trump granted a single exemption to his supercharged tariffs.
The US president revealed he will double to 50 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports on every trading partner except the UK, which will remain subject to the original 25 per cent rate after striking a deal with his administration.
As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to hold a potential in-person meeting with Mr Trump, the announcement offers a glimmer of hope.
But Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Australia could not take any outcomes for granted.
“We’ve made it very clear what we think about those tariffs,” he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
“We will continue to engage, as the friends in the UK have – and most countries have – trying to get the best deal that we can for our people and for our industries.”
Mr Albanese has repeatedly called the US tariffs “an act of economic self-harm” and may try negotiate an exemption on the sidelines of the G7 conference or in the US during a June trip to North America.
His trade minister Don Farrell has already begun making inroads with the US administration, meeting with his American counterpart Jamieson Greer in Paris.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said the coalition was ready to work with Labor to ensure Australia could also secure a tariff carve out.
“President Trump’s tariffs on our steelmakers are not in the spirit of our century-old partnership and we urge the Americans to give Australia a fair go and remove them,” Ms Ley said.
“The coalition wants the government to succeed here because that is in our national interest.”
The statement represents a clear departure from the rhetoric of previous opposition leader Peter Dutton, who claimed a coalition government would be able to lock in a tariff exemption even though no country at the time had managed to do so.
Mr Trump’s 50 per cent steel and aluminium tariff has come into effect as Australia grapples with the 10 per cent baseline “Liberation Day” levies announced in April.
The prime minister has already had three “really constructive” discussions with Mr Trump and said Australia wanted to support free trade between the two countries.
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