By Renju Jose
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday the decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to impose tariffs was “not the act of a friend,” but ruled out placing reciprocal tariffs against the United States.
Trump said he would impose a 10% baseline tariff on all imports and higher duties on some of his country’s biggest trading partners, ratcheting up a trade war he launched on his return to the White House.
“The (Trump) administration’s tariffs have no basis in logic and they go against the basis of our two nations’ partnership. This is not the act of a friend,” Albanese told reporters.
Australia would not impose reciprocal tariffs as this would increase prices for Australian households, he added.
“We will not join a race to the bottom that leads to higher prices and slower growth,” Albanese said.
Australia, a key U.S. security ally in the Indo-Pacific, runs a large trade deficit with the United States, a point repeatedly emphasised by Canberra as it sought a reprieve from Trump’s latest tariffs. Trump had exempted Australia from tariffs during his first presidential term.
The U.S. goods trade surplus with Australia was $17.9 billion in 2024, a 1.6% increase over 2023, data from the office of the U.S. Trade Representative showed. Neither country features in the other’s top 10 trading partners by value.
In comments outside the White House, Trump singled out Australian beef, the country’s largest export to the U.S. totalling $4 billion last year, according to United Nations data.
Australia has banned U.S. fresh beef products since 2003 due to the detection of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, otherwise known as mad cow disease, in U.S. cattle. BSE poses a risk to human health and has never been detected in cattle in Australia.
“Australia bans – and they’re wonderful people, and wonderful everything – but they ban American beef. Yet we imported $3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone,” Trump said at an event in the White House Rose Garden.
“They won’t take any of our beef. They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers and you know, I don’t blame them but we’re doing the same thing right now starting at midnight tonight.”
When asked by a reporter if Trump would ban the entry of Australian beef, Albanese said Trump’s decision was to impose a 10% duty on all goods entering the United States.
(Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Leslie Adler and Stephen Coates)
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