Source : Perth Now news
The prime minister has blamed an “ideological disagreement” for the latest round of American tariffs proposed for countries including Australia over what the US says is their failure to address modern slavery.
The White House is proposing new levies for 60 countries that it says are not doing enough to fight slavery in their supply chains.
Under the proposal, a 10 per cent temporary tariff imposed in February on Australian goods would increase to 12.5 per cent from July 24.
“The acts, policies and practices of Australia related to the failure to impose and effectively enforce a forced-labour import prohibition are unreasonable and burden or restrict US commerce,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer found in a report published overnight.
The tariffs are unwarranted and will only push up prices for consumers in the US, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday.
“There is an ideological disagreement where the United States administration has broken with what was a decades-long understanding that tariffs are not positive for the country that is imposing them,” he told the ABC’s AM program.
Trade Minister Don Farrell spoke with Mr Greer on the sidelines of the OECD ministerial meeting being held in Paris to argue the new import tax was unjustified.
Australia has “robust, comprehensive and world-leading” laws to tackle modern slavery, Mr Albanese said.
Beef and gold from Australia will maintain their existing exemptions from US tariffs, AAP understands.
Other American allies including Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and the European Union, along with adversaries including China and Russia, are also covered under the latest tariff ruling.
“The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labour is unacceptable … we will no longer tolerate this disparity,” Mr Greer said in a statement on Wednesday (AEST).
Former Australian ambassador to the US Joe Hockey said he’d argued personally with Mr Trump about his tariff policies and warned he was “not for moving”.
“America is running out of money, and they need to get it from somewhere. And the President of the United States is convinced that foreigners pay tariffs imposed by America, whereas in fact it is American consumers that pay higher prices,” Mr Hockey told ABC Radio National on Thursday.
