Australian politicians slam ‘unjustified’ US tariff hike on steel, aluminium
US tariffs on steel and aluminium will climb to 50 per cent from Wednesday as the Trump administration vows to revive the US steelmaking industry.
The US administration’s decision to double US tariffs on steel and aluminium from 25 per cent to 50 per cent has been met with criticism from Australian officials.
Minister for Trade and Tourism, Don Farrell, characterised the tariffs as “unjustified” and “not the act of a friend”.
“They are an act of economic self-harm that will only hurt consumers and businesses who rely on free and fair trade. We will continue to engage and advocate strongly for the removal of the tariffs,” he said.
Farrell noted that Australia was not poised to impose retaliatory tariffs on the US, but would instead press them for tariff exemptions.
“We don’t believe that retaliation is the right way to go here,” he said.
“We’re going to cooly and calmly argue our case for the removal of these tariffs.”
The tariff hikes are set to take a hit to Australia’s steel and aluminium industry, but their broader economic effects are likely to be muted. Steel and aluminium make up less than 0.2 per cent of Australia’s total value of exports, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said.
Still, the tariffs are set to have more direct impacts on steelwork companies themselves.
In March, BlueScope noted that it had approximately $5 billion invested across North America and employed over 4,000 American steelworkers.
Its steel exports to the US – approximately 300,000 tonnes annually – would take a direct hit under the tariff hike.
The tariff hike came soon after a US court struck down Trump’s “unconstitutional” use of emergency powers to impose numerous tariffs on its trading partners.
The ruling blocked Trump’s sweeping tariffs for less than a day before a US appeals court paused the decision.
UNSW international trade law professor Lisa Toohey pointed out that the US tariffs appeared to be arbitrary and were not founded in any prior concerns regarding Australia's steel and aluminium exports.
For example, the US Trade Representative’s 2024 report on trade barriers did not make any mention of steel or aluminium as a specific concern within the US-Australia bilateral trade relationship.
Regardless, Trump has voiced his determination to impose high, across-the-board tariffs on US imports of steel and aluminium in a bid to revive the US steelmaking industry.
He told a steelworkers rally in Pittsburgh that the tariff hike would “further secure the steel industry in the United States. Nobody is going to get around that.”
Farrell warned that the policy would harm American consumers while also taking a hit to Australian steel and aluminium exporters.
“It’s the wrong policy. It simply pushes up prices for American consumers. And that’s not good for the Americans. And it’s certainly not good for Australian steel and aluminium producers,” he said.
