Australian exports to US slapped with ten per cent tariff in Trump’s “Liberation Day” address

US president Donald Trump has announced a ten per cent tariff on Australian exports to his country, “starting at midnight tonight”*, with barriers to US beef exports singled out in his justifications.

In a “Liberation Day” address on Thursday morning (Australian time), the president said there would be a broad-ranging tariff on all Australian goods at a “baseline” rate of ten per cent. Other nations had higher tariffs imposed.

“Australia bans — and they’re wonderful people, and wonderful everything — but they ban American beef,” said Trump.

“Yet we imported $US3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone.”

Beef exports are the largest Australian export to the US, and according to COMTRADE figures were worth approximately $4 billion in 2024. Restrictions on US beef exports to Australia were imposed after the 2003 “mad cow disease” scare.

Australia’s total exports of goods to the US are worth approximately $22 billion annually, with the nation accounting for 4.1 per cent of all exports.

“For Australia, these tariffs are not unexpected, but let me be clear, they are totally unwarranted,” said prime minister Anthony Albanese following the news.

Credit Ai Group

The prime minister said that there would be no retaliatory tariffs on the US in a “race to the bottom that leads to higher prices and slower growth.”

Employer representative the Australian Industry Group also described the tariffs as a “not unexpected”, as well as a move by a US administration “hellbent on remaking the international economic order”.

“It also sends an ominous signal about what comes next. This will undoubtedly spark retaliation, imposing barriers on well-known trading relationships and driving up costs for businesses and consumers,” Innes Willox, the group’s Chief Executive, said in a statement on Thursday morning.

“As more details emerge, particularly how these different tariffs interact with each other, companies will need to make individual assessments on the impact to their businesses, and we still start to feel the consequences in the economy.”

*Update: According to a newly-released statement from the White House, the tariffs will come into effect on April 5, 2025 at 12:01 a.m. EDT

Main picture: A black angus cattle (credit Wikideas1, CC0)