The Trump administration has confirmed a 12.5 per cent tariff will be placed on Australian exports to the US from later today.<\/p>\n
The new levy will replace a temporary 10 per cent tariff that was set to expire at the same time.<\/p>\n
Dozens of other countries will also be hit with new tariffs, which were first proposed last month after a US trade investigation into forced labour in international supply chains.<\/p>\n
The US has now announced the proposed tariffs will take effect from 12:01am Friday, local time (2:01pm Friday AEST).<\/p>\n
But some countries, including the UK, will only be subject to a smaller 10 per cent tariff. The US says those countries are taking stronger action against forced labour \u2014 a claim Australia disputes.<\/p>\n
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the new tariff “makes no sense”.<\/p>\n
“We continue to make that argument to the Trump administration, both in terms of trade but also in terms of our stance in relation to forced labour,” Mr Marles told ABC News Breakfast.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration argues the US is doing its part to combat forced labour but other countries are not, putting American companies at a competitive disadvantage.<\/p>\n
Trump rebuilds his tariff wall<\/a><\/p>\n Donald Trump had been using tariffs to increase his power over other countries until America’s Supreme Court stepped in. He was never going to cede that power easily.<\/p>\n However, many analysts say US President Donald Trump is simply trying to replace the tariffs that were invalidated by the US Supreme Court earlier this year, and the forced labour investigation is merely a pretext.<\/p>\n “As expected, the administration is well on its way toward ensuring that, through a patchwork of investigations, the United States will ultimately have tariffs similar to those [previous tariffs],” Council on Foreign Relations president Michael Froman recently wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n US ignores Australia’s request<\/p>\n The Australian government had asked the US not to go ahead with the proposed tariff<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a formal submission earlier this month, Australia reiterated its opposition to Mr Trump’s tariffs, which have created a sore point in a traditionally strong bilateral friendship.<\/p>\n The submission<\/a> argued Australia has some of the world’s strongest legislation to tackle forced labour. It questioned why countries with similar measures, like the UK, would be subject to smaller tariffs.<\/p>\n The submission also pointed to the US’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report<\/a>, which assesses a country’s efforts to prevent forced labour and has consistently given Australia the best possible rating.<\/p>\n It also argued Australia had been working constructively with the US on trade issues, pointing to recently relaxed restrictions on American beef imports<\/a>, and the critical minerals framework deal signed at the White House last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n “The strength of this economic relationship \u2026 means that Australia should not be subject to the proposed action, or any tariff measure whatsoever,” it said.<\/p>\n The new tariffs will not be placed on top of existing tariffs on imports like metals and car parts, which are being levied under a different section of trade law.<\/p>\n And products that were exempt from the previous tariff will also be exempt from the new one. That includes many food products, which were granted exemptions as the Trump administration responded to public anger over rising living costs.<\/p>\n Probe followed Trump’s anger over court ruling<\/p>\n The US began formally investigating forced labour in supply chains in March, shortly after the Supreme Court struck down many of Mr Trump’s tariffs<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n At the time, Mr Trump and his trade officials said such investigations were among the mechanisms they would use to replace the invalidated tariffs, and that the new tariffs would be “potentially higher”.<\/p>\n However, the US now argues the new tariffs are about correcting human rights abuses and distortional trade practices.<\/p>\n “President Trump recognizes that decades of moral suasion have not eradicated forced labor from global supply chains,” US trade ambassador Jamieson Greer said in a statement today.<\/p>\n “The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same.”<\/p>\n