US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has labelled Australia as a “dumper” of under-priced aluminium as domestic politicians scramble to push for an exemption on steel and aluminium tariffs.
“You’ve got dumpers in the rest of the world. Japan dumps steel, China dumps steel,” he told Fox Business. “We’re going to stop that nonsense and bring steel here.
“We’re not going to stand for China dumping, Japan dumping, Australia does a lot of aluminium at below cost.”
Lutnick said Trump was “protecting America”.
Australia’s steel and aluminium exports to the US amount to about 0.2 per cent of the national total export value.
This morning, opposition leader Peter Dutton promised to “get a deal done” with US President Donald Trump if he were elected, after the White House imposed global tariffs on steel and aluminium imports yesterday.
Australia failed to obtain an exemption from the tariffs, which Dutton said was a failure on the part of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“I just think he’s out of depth, and I completely and utterly disagree with the decision President Trump’s made, but it’s up to our prime minister to stand up for our country’s interests,” Dutton told Today.
A Coalition government negotiated an exemption on US tariffs during Trump’s first term, though it took about a year to do so.
Dutton said if he was elected as Prime Minister, he would “get a deal done” with the White House.
“And we’ll make sure that we can protect jobs and protect industry,” he said.
He claimed Albanese, who yesterday slammed the tariffs decision as without justification and “not a friendly act”, did not have a good relationship with Trump.
Albanese last month spoke with Trump by phone regarding a possible exemption.
Trump, who labelled Albanese “a very fine man” afterwards, said he would give the issue “great consideration”, before the White House press secretary revealed yesterday no exemptions would be forthcoming.
Albanese – who has also been criticised for repeated overseas trips during his tenure as prime minister – was attacked by opponents for not personally travelling to the US in order to press Trump on tariffs.
Dutton said Albanese was the only Quad leader to not have visited the US since Trump’s election.
However, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that the value of such a personal trip was dubious, pointing out that the tariffs did not exempt other Quad members India and Japan.
Coup announced on radio, 20 minutes before the attempt began
“Part of what the Trump administration has said this time is that they made a mistake when they gave exemptions to their tariffs in their first term,” Wong said on Today.
“So part of why they have not given exemptions to Australia and to other countries, to any other country, is they think they made a mistake in their first term.”
She backed Albanese’s labelling of the tariffs as “unjustified”.
The government has pledged to continue negotiations.