{"id":638056,"date":"2026-04-29T08:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/638056\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T08:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:26:08","slug":"trump-administration-labels-australias-media-bargaining-laws-foreign-extortion-australian-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/638056\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration labels Australia\u2019s media bargaining laws \u2018foreign extortion\u2019 | Australian media"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration has described Australia\u2019s moves to make big tech companies pay for news online as \u201cextortion\u201d but Anthony Albanese<\/a> defended the plan by saying it was about protecting and rewarding media outlets for the work they produce.<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s plan to encourage Meta, Google and TikTok to make deals with Australian news publishers, or face a 2.25% levy, is likely to be supported by the Coalition and Greens in parliament. But a bigger problem may be the ire of Donald Trump<\/a>, who has strongly opposed extra regulation being imposed on US-based tech companies. A major tech industry lobby group on Wednesday urged the White House to consider retaliatory trade measures.<\/p>\n

The Australian Financial Review<\/a> quoted a Trump administration spokesperson, Kush Desai, as saying the US government would examine the details.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump is committed to defending America\u2019s leading technology sector from digital services taxes and other forms of foreign extortion,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Trump administration will continue to address these issues with our trading partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia has contacted the White House for comment.<\/p>\n

The US-based Computer & Communications Industry Association \u2013 a trade group for the tech industry which represents Meta and Google<\/a> as well as other major big firms including Apple, Amazon, Google, Uber and Pinterest \u2013 also criticised the Australian proposal, calling it \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a strong statement, the CCIA attacked what it called \u201carbitrary service definitions\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would effectively function as a coercive levy tied to linking and displaying local news content \u2013 what is, in trade parlance, an illegal performance requirement<\/a>,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Computer & Communications Industry Association strongly opposes this proposal and urges the U.S. government to publicly and forcefully challenge the draft measure, including through targeted trade remedies, if legislation passes. The Incentive is discriminatory in both design and effect, singling out predominantly U.S. firms while distorting digital markets and undermining open internet principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google<\/a> and Meta also strongly criticised the government\u2019s change<\/a>. Google rejected the need for the reform and was scathing Labor didn\u2019t include AI platforms, while Meta \u2013 which manages Facebook and Instagram \u2013 said the government\u2019s position was \u201csimply wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked about the comments from the White House on Wednesday, Albanese said the plan was necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that whether you\u2019re from Bloomberg or from the Fin or the West or Seven, your intellectual property, your work should be valued and someone shouldn\u2019t be able to take your work and make a profit from it without payment,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s intellectual property, that\u2019s creativity, that\u2019s hard work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is property that you are producing. I value your work. I respect the work that journalists do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Albanese stressed that there would be \u201cno revenue gain\u201d for the Australian government, noting that the government wanted companies to make deals and not have to pay the levy at all.<\/p>\n

While the Coalition\u2019s shadow communications spokesperson, Sarah Henderson, stopped short of backing the changes on Tuesday, the Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, on Wednesday voiced support for making big tech pay for news, raising prospects of the scheme passing through parliament with Coalition<\/a> support.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to see the government just bring it to fruition because I absolutely do think that these large overseas big tech companies should be contributing to the news services of all Australians,\u201d he told Channel Nine.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven those companies are using a lot of those news, monetising those news, they should be making a contribution back to those news services.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Greens\u2019 communications spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young<\/a>, said she wanted to see more details, including how deals would be done and how the funding would be distributed, raising concern that smaller or regional publishers would be left behind. But it\u2019s expected the Greens will back more support for news outlets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is going to make sure it goes to good quality, public interest journalism?\u201d Hanson-Young asked. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t just be going to shareholders, big media companies and their shareholders, it needs to go to the creation of journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration has described Australia\u2019s moves to make big tech companies pay for news online as \u201cextortion\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-638056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638056","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=638056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}