SYDNEY: Australia on Sunday (Nov 16) cautiously welcomed US President Donald Trump’s rollback of his tariffs on beef, whereas urgent the US to get rid of all tariffs on Australian items.
Trump on Friday eliminated tariffs he had imposed on greater than 200 meals merchandise, together with beef, amid shopper issues about rising US grocery costs. Australia in 2024 turned the largest shipper of pink meat to the US, providing decrease costs and lean cuts that the US lacks.
“We welcome the lifting of those tariffs. That is a very good factor for Australian beef producers,” Overseas Minister Penny Wong instructed Australian Broadcasting Corp tv.
However Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mentioned his Labor authorities would proceed “to advocate for real reciprocal tariffs, which might be zero”.
Among the many varied tariffs Trump has imposed on items shipped into the US, he calls a few of them “reciprocal”, based mostly on the dimensions of the US goods-trade deficit with a given nation.
“We consider very firmly, and can proceed to advocate for us to have zero tariffs,” Albanese mentioned in televised remarks from Melbourne.
Wong wouldn’t say whether or not Albanese’s centre-left authorities, which has beforehand lobbied for a reprieve, now anticipated Trump to wind again his 50 per cent tariffs on Australian metal and aluminium imports.
“We’ll maintain advocating our place,” she mentioned.
Trump in April singled out a beef commerce disparity with Australia, which exports greater than A$4 billion (US$2.61 billion) price of beef to the US yearly. Months after Trump’s feedback, Australia mentioned it will ease restrictions on beef imports from the US, in place since 2003 attributable to issues about bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow illness.
Australia has shipped between 150,000 tons and 400,000 tons of the product yearly since 1990 to the US, the place it’s fashionable with fast-food chains.
