{"id":496215,"date":"2026-02-22T06:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T06:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/496215\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T06:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T06:12:09","slug":"australia-will-examine-all-options-to-avoid-new-15-tariffs-announced-by-donald-trump-australian-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/496215\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia will \u2018examine all options\u2019 to avoid new 15% tariffs announced by Donald Trump | Australian foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia will \u201cexamine all options\u201d after the US president Donald Trump announced a temporary 15% tariff<\/a> would apply to US imports from all countries.<\/p>\n

The US president\u2019s move came less than 24 hours after the US supreme court overturned<\/a> his original 10% import tariff. Shortly after the ruling, Trump announced he was reinstating the 10% duties using a different law before raising it again to 15%.<\/p>\n

In a brief statement on Sunday morning, the trade minister, Don Farrell, said he was working closely with Australia\u2019s embassy in Washington to \u201cassess the implications and examine all options\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia believes in free and fair trade,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have consistently advocated against these unjustified tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

Farrell will travel to Los Angeles week for the G\u2019Day USA event, where he is expected to meet with senior US government officials.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s expected the new levies will come into effect from 4pm on Tuesday 24 February AEDT, though the White House\u2019s fact sheet<\/a> has not been updated for the latest levy announcement.<\/p>\n

Trump took to social media to announce his response, decrying the supreme court ruling as \u201cridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American\u201d and claiming the subjected countries had been \u201c\u2018ripping\u2019 the U.S. off for decades\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs<\/a>, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again – GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!\u201d the US president wrote.<\/p>\n

The shadow defence minister, James Paterson, told Sky News on Sunday that Trump\u2019s announcement was \u201cregrettable and unfortunate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s contrary to our free trade agreement and the spirit of our friendship between our two nations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would hope that the president would consider an exemption for Australia from that tariff, and I hope that the Albanese Government, with their new ambassador, Greg Moriarty, shortly to start in Washington D.C., are able to secure that exemption for Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, told Channel Nine the newly announce tariffs would be \u201cdamaging to everybody\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTariffs are inflationary. And guess who pays it? It\u2019s the little guy. It\u2019s you and I,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s when we go to the supermarkets, when we go to buy or go to build a home, we have to pay for it. And that\u2019s the reality of what Donald Trump\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November, Trump removed tariffs<\/a> on beef, coffee and banana exports to the US after conceding domestic demand was outstripping domestic supply. The Australian government has consistently criticised the levies as \u201can act of economic self-harm\u201d.<\/p>\n

Independent economist Saul Eslake said the proposed new tariffs would likely have a modest direct impact on Australia, given the size of the market for domestic producers.<\/p>\n

He noted worst-case economic scenarios failed to materialise in 2025, but said there would be some uncertainty as countries scrambled to decode and respond to the latest announcements and that could weigh on economic activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effects of the tariffs to date, while Trump had imposed them on Australia, were quite limited,\u201d Eslake said.<\/p>\n

He did anticipate more uncertainty as countries scrambled to decode and respond to the latest announcements, and said that could weigh on economic activity.<\/p>\n

– with AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia will \u201cexamine all options\u201d after the US president Donald Trump announced a temporary 15% tariff would apply…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-496215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}