Trump tariffs spark questions over US alliance

Andrew Tillett, AFR, Foreign affairs, defence correspondent, 3 Apr 25

The alliance with the United States is facing its toughest test in decades after Donald Trump imposed a 10 per cent tariff on Australian exports as part of his escalating trade war, which has sent shockwaves around the world and heightened the risk of a global recession.

Markets plunged on news of Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, with Australian stocks shedding more than $21 billion, while traders bet the Reserve Bank could cut interest rates up to four times this year.

Australia escaped Trump’s tariffs relatively unscathed, with just the minimum baseline of 10 per cent applied to goods exported to the US, although the President singled out the longstanding ban on American beef as a grievance.

A government source, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities, said there had been indications from the US that it was willing to negotiate to reduce or remove tariffs on Australian exports.

However, the government remains on alert for more tariff hikes after pharmaceuticals, copper and gold were among a select few commodities exempted from Trump’s “liberation day” executive order.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the tariffs were totally unwarranted and would prompt some Australians to question the relationship with the US. Former prime minister Paul Keating suggested Trump’s tariff campaign cast doubt on the value of the ANZUS alliance, the cornerstone of Australian defence policy for more than 70 years.

“The 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 said.

The Australian people have every right to view this action by the Trump administration as undermining our free and fair trading relationship and counter to the shared values that have always been at the heart of our two nations’ long-standing friendship. This will have consequences for how Australians see this relationship.”

Keating said the announcement was effectively the death knell of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the US-led military alliance with Europe, a decision which would inform other allied relationships with the US.

“Australia’s clutch of Austral-Americans, that phalanx of American acolytes,
must have choked on their breakfasts, as Donald Trump laid out his blitzkrieg on globalisation, with all its implications for the rupture of cooperation and goodwill among nations,” he said.

“If NATO, America’s principal strategic alliance, is expendable, what credible rationale could underpin US fidelity to ANZUS and with it, to Australia?”

Former foreign minister Bob Carr said the alliance with the US “counts for nothing” and was reason to axe the AUKUS pact, Australia’s agreement to acquire nuclear-powered submarines from the US and UK…………………………………………………………………………………

a mining industry source, speaking anonymously, said the government could buy up critical minerals and stockpile them to use as leverage in future trade negotiations.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said if he won the May 3 election he would use access to Australia’s critical minerals and deeper defence cooperation, particularly in defence industry, as bargaining chips to get tariffs lifted…………………….https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/trump-tariffs-spark-questions-over-us-alliance-20250403-p5lox9