Australia won’t retaliate against ‘unjustified’ US tariffs on steel and aluminum
Australia won’t retaliate against ‘unjustified’ US tariffs on steel and aluminum
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says U.S. tariffs on Australian steel and aluminum are unjustified, but his government will not retaliate with its own tariffs.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/40630983
Yeah, fuck this guy.
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Well, I guess between Canada and Australia, we’ll get to run the experiment on whether the Canuck or cuck approach is the right path.
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We're not retaliating with tariffs because nearly every mainstream economist has advised against it, including our own Treasury. Here's the quote from Steven Kennedy, treasury head, at a Senate estimates hearing on 26 February:
For a medium-sized economy such as Australia, there is overwhelming evidence that the use of trade restrictions imposes costs on our consumers and businesses... If Australia were to impose tariffs, we would bear nearly all the cost, given our size and inability to affect the world prices of the goods we import.
We would be shooting ourselves in the foot for the sake of what would essentially amount to little more than a symbolic gesture. We have other, more effective cards beyond tariffs.
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It sucks but it is what it is. Being an island nation dependant on imports, we don't have much weight to throw around without self destructing with our already fucked cost of living crisis.
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I can see what they're going for. We have a good history of exemptions, and getting another one would be a big win domestically with an election looming. You might think there's no way it will happen, but we do hold some cards, so to speak. I wouldn't be surprised if in more private negotiations they're threatening to close Pine Gap or cancel other cooperative military arrangements.
Retaliatory tariffs just aren't our best option.
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if you look at the numbers, Canada's not that far from Australia. they've only instituted a tariff on like 10% of American imports
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Huh? Canada retaliated dollar for dollar.
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Foolish. I’m an American that voted for Harris and still think we deserved to be sanctioned
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I would have preferred a harder stance from us on this tbh.
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Gutless Australian Government
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Australia could get annexed by the USA too. The USA already has military bases in Australia. Stand for something or fall for anything.
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Just wait till we vote in that asshole Peter Dutton, he will just copy Trump and put tariffs on our allies too.
Were just as fucked as you guys are.
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Clearly some countries didn’t get the memo. Guess it’s time to update the list of limp-wrist cunts for future reference. UK and Australia are really showing their true colours in all this.
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It's not our responsibility to damage our own economy for an empty symbolic gesture
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For sure. Every country for itself. Just remember that in the near future when China is parked on your coastline and causing problems for all of you. I’ll be writing my MP urging them to stay out of it since we trade with China and generally get along. Cheers.
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So much for the democratic nations coalescing against evil - traitors.
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The Australian leadership is deathly afraid of the CCP. They will suck Trump's balls dry for the sake of national security.
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Why not?
If Europe, Canada, Mexico, China and Australia raise tarifs for the US it'll push itself into bankruptcy faster than you can say "Cheeto and Elmo are sad losers"
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The US imports more metal from Australia than we export. This will just shoot the US in the foot and will further incentivize the plan to build up Australian manufacturing. It makes perfect sense why they wouldn't retaliate.
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Certainly they can find better sources of metal than shipping it halfway around the world.