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 considerations about rising US grocery costs. Australia in 2024 grew to become the largest shipper of purple meat to the US, providing decrease costs and lean cuts that the US lacks.
“We welcome the lifting of those tariffs. That is a great factor for Australian beef producers,” Overseas Minister Penny Wong advised Australian Broadcasting Corp tv.
However Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated 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”, primarily based on the dimensions of the US goods-trade deficit with a given nation.
“We imagine very firmly, and can proceed to advocate for us to have zero tariffs,” Albanese stated 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 preserve advocating our place,” she stated.
Trump in April singled out a beef commerce disparity with Australia, which exports greater than A$4 billion (US$2.61 billion) value of beef to the US yearly. Months after Trump’s feedback, Australia stated it could ease restrictions on beef imports from the US, in place since 2003 because of considerations 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 in style with fast-food chains.
