Anthony Albanese is under fire from the Coalition for not securing an exemption on tariffs for steel and aluminium exports to the US but former ambassador Arthur Sinodinos has backed the prime minister’s decision not to impose retaliatory tariffs.
He does not believe Mr Albanese is to blame for US President Donald Trump’s decision.
Mr Albanese said on Wednesday that Mr Trump’s decision was “entirely unjustified” and “not the way to treat a friend” but Mr Sinodinos told 7.30 the door would likely remain ajar for Australia to make a deal with the US president.
“I don’t think Australians should give up on the prospect of trying to do something about this,” Mr Sinodinos said.
One of the key attacks against the PM from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is that the PM did not do enough to stop the tariffs.
“The prime minister can’t secure a phone call or meeting with the president of the United States. How on Earth can an outcome be negotiated if the president won’t even take his call,” Mr Dutton said earlier on Wednesday.
Mr Sinodinos says it was likely nothing Mr Albanese could have done would have changed the outcome.
“From my vantage point in Washington, the chances of getting an exemption were less than 50 per cent,” he told 7.30.
“They were always unlikely to happen, given the atmosphere here in Washington at the moment.
“The Trump administration believe in tariffs. He [Mr Trump] says it’s the most beautiful word in the English language.
Donald Trump has previously stated “tariff” is his favourite word in the dictionary.
(Pool via AP)
“He wants the money that he thinks tariffs will raise, and he wants the protective effect of tariffs.
“And there’s a faction in the administration that believe they can restore manufacturing to what it was in the 50s and 60s in America.
“That’s their view of where things should go.
“The reality was that even if he [Mr Albanese] dashed here in the last few days, I don’t think it would have worked, given the campaign that people like Peter Navarro in the White House were running.“
Albanese must continue to ‘play it cool’
As the White House looks to “make America great again”, Mr Trump’s chief trade adviser Mr Navarro has made it clear he believes Australia has taken advantage of tariff exemptions.
Peter Navarro, trade adviser to Donald Trump, spoke out against tariff exemptions for Australia. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
Mr Trump is also set to unleash harsh trade tariffs on Canada and Mexico, causing an uproar, particularly in Canada, and likely retaliatory tariffs from the US’s northern neighbour.
China has already felt the wrath of US tariffs and responded in kind.
Mr Sinodinos has previously questioned Mr Trump’s understanding of how tariffs work and the implications of them for Americans.
But he also believes Mr Albanese was right not to slap retaliatory tariffs on the US.
“It’s wise that the government has not escalated on this matter at the moment. We’ve got to play it cool,”
he said.
Mr Sinodinos, who served as ambassador to the US during the final year of Mr Trump’s first presidency, also believes that the current period — in the lead-up to an Australian federal election — is the wrong time for Mr Albanese to push his case with Mr Trump.
‘Eyeball the president’
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Donald Trump’s tariffs on Australia are “not the way to treat a friend”. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
He said a face-to-face meeting for a returned Mr Albanese or a newly elected Mr Dutton at the White House could be a better forum.
That is despite the fact that it recently was not for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who endured a shocking meeting in the Oval Office with Mr Trump and US Vice-President JD Vance.
“Once a leader comes out of the election … they [can] come here as the recently elected or recently re-elected leader of the country, arguing in Australia’s national interest, and will have an opportunity to eyeball the president,” Mr Sinodinos said.
“The president is a deal maker, and dealing with him in this way may well work.
“The most important thing is to be confident about what it is that we seek out of an administration in Washington and come here confident and on the front foot.
“What they don’t like is people who appear to be defensive or weak or don’t know what they want. [We should] put concrete propositions on the table that they can respond to.”
As for what those propositions could contain, Mr Sinodinos believes Australia could lean on its rich cache of critical minerals if needed.
Arthur Sinodinos believes Australia’s stocks of critical minerals will be of interest to the US president. (ABC News: Dickon Mager)
The US has already tried to leverage Ukraine for their critical minerals but Australia is the world’s largest lithium producer and also possesses high-quality cobalt, manganese, tungsten and vanadium.
“The [Trump] administration is interested in critical minerals,” Mr Sinodinos said.
“We [Australia] have plenty of all the critical minerals that are needed for defence or decarbonisation. So I think this is an area where we can find complementarity between our two economies.
“Those resources are valuable, but we’ve got to find ways to deploy them, and we’re not going to deploy them with China.
“The whole point of developing our critical minerals, in part, is to give the US and our Western partners a way to reduce their dependence on critical mineral supply chains, many of which pass through China.
“And that’s a strategic consideration that would loom large in the minds of the Americans as well.“
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