Kevin Rudd, Australia’s ambassador to the US, has vowed to keep fighting for a tariff carve out, but warned the current administration is “protectionist” and transactional”.
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Rudd told the ABC’s 7.30 program on Thursday night that negotiating to exempt Australia from a 25% tariff on aluminium and steel imports to the US has been “tough”.
“Team Australia, led by myself as ambassador, have thrown everything at this since 20 January, the day of the inauguration,” he said.
“I had a team of 20 government officials, we had three sets of ministers in town, two sets of prime ministerial phone calls, but we’re up against an administration with a deep-seated view that tariffs are the way of the future.”
The tariffs took effect on Wednesday, despite Donald Trump previously telling Anthony Albanese there would be “great consideration” for an exemption.
The prime minister called the decision “unjustified” and said it was “not the way to treat a friend”.
Rudd said the America he has been dealing with since 20 January is “vastly different”, and stressed no country has been able to secure an exemption from this round of tariffs.
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“We’re up against a deep, ideological, strategic view of this Trump administration,” he told 7.30.
“These are deep-seated, fundamental changes in this different America, which every one of the 36 countries who negotiated tariff exemptions on steel and aluminium last time round, back in 2017, have had to contend with this time round.”
That view has come strongly from Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who singled out Australia’s previous tariff exemption, and accused Australia overnight of exporting steel and aluminium “below cost”. There’s been no evidence found of that practice.
Rudd said he had talked to Lutnick in the past week and the commerce chief accepted the US had a historic trade surplus with Australia. But that argument had “not prevailed”.
“With secretary Lutnick, who carries the president’s mandate, it’s been tough, direct, himself asserting this new Trumpian worldview, which is America will be hard-line and transactional in its approach even to longstanding friends, partners and allies.”
Those discussions were after a series of direct negotiations between the prime minister, foreign minister Penny Wong, treasurer Jim Chalmers, and trade minister Don Farrell with their US counterparts.
Rudd also revealed he’d made a request to Albanese to make a second call to Trump, but said, “by the time the decision was taken, late Tuesday, we had not been able to secure that time”.
“I think it stands to reason we should question whether, in fact, even this request for a late telephone call would have necessarily made a material difference,” he said.
There has been growing pressure from the opposition for Albanese to travel to the US and speak to Trump ahead of the federal election.
The prime minister was in Perth on Thursday afternoon and said it was important for him to stay in Australia.
“The most important place for me to be is doing my job as the Australian prime minister,” he told reporters.
Albanese again rejected criticism from the opposition, that they could have achieved a deal with the Trump administration.
“When it comes to Peter Dutton’s response to the actions of the American government under the Trump administration, who’ve been very clear that they want these tariffs to apply across the board to every country. This is not Australia being singled out.”
Former coalition cabinet minister Simon Birmingham, who was trade minister for part of the first Trump administration, told the ABC that the language from close advisers has changed this time around.
“It has been clear from the language of key advisers like Peter Navarro they came prepared this time around for the argument against exemptions,” he said.
“As for whether deals can be struck, that is a matter to be seen over the coming weeks, months and potentially beyond.”
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