Trump threatens higher tariffs for countries including Australia
Australia could face even higher tariffs from the US, as President Donald Trump says he plans a new tariff that could be “somewhere in the 15 to 20% range”.
The US has currently placed a “baseline” 10% tariff on Australia, rather than a higher “reciprocal” tariff.
Trump made the comments in Scotland, after negotiating a 15% tariff rate with the European Union this week.
Trump said that his administration will notify about 200 countries soon of a new tariff rate for “the rest of the world”.
“I would say it’ll be somewhere in the 15 to 20 per cent range,” he said. “Probably one of those two numbers.”
It puts even more pressure on the government to negotiate with the US to avoid a higher rate.
Key events
Trump’s threat to double tariffs for countries including Australia ‘bad policy’, says shadow trade minister
The shadow trade minister, Kevin Hogan, says Donald Trump’s threat that countries including Australia could face even higher tariffs from the US is “bad policy”.
Trump said on Tuesday morning he plans a new tariff that could be “somewhere in the 15 to 20% range”.
Hogan said Anthony Albanese should seek a meeting with the US president to push back on behalf of Australia.
If Trump is looking to put tariffs higher, I think that is damaging not only to the US consumer, which means their inflation rate will go up, but it has a real danger to slow global growth.
We’ve seen a bit of it, but this could accentuate it, almost like a global trade war. Especially a country like China, if they were to retaliate to these higher tariffs, what would that mean? That would mean slower global growth.
Hogan said as much as $650bn worth of Australian exports could be put at risk from a further breakdown in trade rules.
[It] accentuates in my belief the importance that our prime minister secure a face-to-face meeting.
He has to put a very strong sovereign case to America that their policy is bad … this has to be put very forcefully and has to happen.
Graham Readfearn
CSIRO report says renewables with storage still cheapest power choice
The CSIRO has released a final version of its annual report looking at the relative costs of electricity generation technologies, with renewables backed with storage remaining the cheapest options for the grid.
The GenCost report has changed little from the draft version that was released in December in the middle of the Coalition’s pre-election push for nuclear energy.
The technologies with the lowest cost range are still wind and solar, the report says, even after the costs of integrating them into the grid are included. Those costs include factors such as the building of transmission lines and the need to “firm” renewables with energy storage such as batteries.
The next cheapest technologies are black coal and gas and solar thermal, followed by large-scale nuclear reactors and finally small modular nuclear reactors (SMR), which theoretically offer the most expensive forms of power in the report.
We say theoretically because commercial versions of the technology are still unavailable. The GenCost report factored in costs from a Canadian nation-building project in Ontario where four SMRs are being planned. Those costs were similar to the assumed costs in the draft report.
The capital costs for most technologies has gone up, the report says. Financing and construction costs for most technologies have gone up: gas turbines costs are forecast to rise; and the report added the cost of remote work camps to the overall costs of building windfarms.
Tariff situation in a ‘state of flux’: assistant treasurer
“It’s not surprising” says Daniel Mulino, that Trump is suggesting tariff rates could change globally.
Donald Trump has suggested that tariffs could increase globally, reaching 15 to 20% – and could mean Australia’s baseline tariff of 10% is doubled.
Speaking to Sky News a little earlier, Mulino says the tariff situation has been changing and is in “a state of flux”, but the government is still engaging with the US administration.
I think this has been a situation that’s been in a state of flux for some time now.
The situation in relation to what the US is suggesting they’re going to impose on other countries globally, not just in relation to Australia, has been changing over the last few weeks and months. So it’s not surprising that there’d be a statement that would suggest a change. The president’s been wanting to adjust his bargaining position in a range of ways along the way.
A timeline of Trump’s tariffs threats
This isn’t the first time Donald Trump has threatened higher blanket tariffs on nations, flagging tariffs of 15 to 20% (the same rate he announced in Scotland this morning) on 10 July.
At that time, he threatened to impose a 35% tariff on Canada that would come into effect on 1 August.
Trump said in an interview with on 10 July NBC that countries would receive letters with higher rates.
“We’re just going to say all of the remaining countries are going to pay, whether it’s 20% or 15%. We’ll work that out now,” Trump was quoted as saying by the network.
On 24 July, Trump also said he would not go below a 15% tariff rate, at an AI summit in Washington.
We’ll have a straight, simple tariff of anywhere between 15% and 50% … A couple of – we have 50 because we haven’t been getting along with those countries too well.
Government to set emissions reduction target ‘in due course’, says Butler
A 2035 emissions reduction target will be set “in due course”, says Mark Butler, telling ABC News Breakfast the government has a “serious plan” to tackle climate change.
Earlier this month, the international court of justice ruled that countries must prevent harm to the climate system and that failing to do so could result in their having to pay compensation.
Butler says Australia is on track to meet its current climate targets and “engages deeply” with Pacific Island neighbours.
We will make a decision about a target for 2035 in due course. We engage deeply with our Pacific Island neighbours and friends because for them this is an existential threat and they want bigger countries like Australia doing the right thing. They recognise there is a decade of inaction under the last government. We put in place a serious plan.
Butler says the government is giving clean energy investors confidence, while the opposition is still facing “division and chaos”.
On the other side of politics, you’ve got division and chaos yet again. That is led by Barnaby Joyce. Last night we saw a Senate vote where some Coalition senators voted with Pauline Hanson and some voted against her and the vast bulk didn’t come into the chamber one way or the other.
Australia will continue to advocate for removal of US tariffs, trade minister says
The government says its position on US tariffs is “unchanged” and will continue to lobby the US to drop them.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the trade minister, Don Farrell, said:
Our position is unchanged – any tariffs on Australian good are unjustified and an act of economic self-harm.
We will continue to engage at all levels to advocate for the removal of all tariffs, in line with our free trade agreement with the United States.
Earlier, senior government minister Mark Butler said the government is still trying to get a “sense” of what the US administration is planning.
The opposition has been critical of the prime minister for not yet having met with Donald Trump since his election to office.
Ruston quizzed about Hanson’s net zero vote
Last night in the Senate chamber, Pauline Hanson tried to wedge the Coalition by putting a motion forward to scrap Australia’s net zero by 2050 emissions policy.
It was overwhelmingly voted down, but the One Nation senators were joined by Coalition senators, Matt Canavan and Alex Antic, and United Australia party senator Ralph Babet, totalling seven who voted in favour.
Some in the Coalition voted no while others abstained.
RN Breakfast host, Sally Sara, asks Ruston why she wasn’t there for the vote.
Ruston says she was on leave yesterday for a shadow cabinet meeting, but says the Coalition has committed to going through a process to review all its energy policies.
I think we all respect the fact that there is a broad range of views in our party room on this particular issue. But the one thing that I will always do is respect all of those views. I want to hear all of the views of my colleagues, and then we’ll go through a respectful process and come up with a united policy at the end of it.
Shadow health minister criticises Labor for bulk-billing rates and home care package delay
Following Butler into the RN Breakfast studio is Anne Ruston, the shadow health minister, who has called Anthony Albanese a “snake oil salesman” on GP bulk-billing rates.
You might remember the well worn line from the government that “all you need is your Medicare card” during the election campaign (with a Medicare card in hand), but Ruston says the bulk-billing figures show there are many Australians who are still pulling out the credit card to pay a significant gap fee.
Bulk-billing rates have plummeted by 11%. That’s 1.5 million Australians last year chose not to see their doctor because they said they simply couldn’t afford to.
The opposition has also criticised the government for delaying the release of 80,000 home care packages into the aged care system.
The government made a promise in the election campaign that they were going to release 80,000 new home care packages on 1 July. Then, only minutes into their next term, they actually took those 80,000 packages off the table, and we now believe that they may be released sometime at the end of the year.
Ruston says 87,000 older Australians have been assessed as needing the packages but aren’t receiving them.
The Coalition will support a motion from independent David Pocock to establish an inquiry into the delay. You can read more about that from my colleague Tom McIlroy here:
Australia trying to ‘prosecute our interest’ on any tariffs on pharmaceutical exports to US: Butler
The trade situation is “shifting around a bit” says Mark Butler, as the US president, Donald Trump, announced in the last couple of hours there could be new tariffs of up to 15 or 20%.
Butler says he’s only seen the news on his phone, and the government is trying to “make sure that we have a sense of what the US administration is planning” while pushing a case for the tariffs to be removed entirely.
Our officials are working hard to get a sense exactly of the nature and the timing of any tariffs on pharmaceutical exports, which, as your listeners would know, is a particular sector or industry that the US administration has been focused on …
We recognise this is a very significant challenge, including to pharmaceutical exports from Australia to the US, which by and large are blood and plasma products. We’re doing everything we can to prosecute our interest as Australians.
Butler asked whether Australia should recognise a Palestinian state now
There are growing calls for Australia to recognise a Palestinian state now, including by government MP Ed Husic, who penned an op-ed for Guardian Australia yesterday.
Mark Butler is continuing his media rounds, and is asked on ABC RN Breakfast whether he supports Husic’s call.
Butler reiterates the foreign affairs minister Penny Wong’s comments that recognition would form part of the peace process, rather than be worked through at the end of that peace process, but he says there are a number of issues the government needs to consider.
The prime minister over the weekend said that there obviously were a number of issues that we would be considering as a government on the question of recognition. For example, how do you make sure Hamas plays no role in a Palestinian state? What are the guarantees for Israeli security? But also, what is the structure of the state that we would be recognising? So we’ll do that at an appropriate time.
Albanese government to expand subsidy program for renewable energy projects
The government will expand its subsidy program for renewable energy projects, which it says will help power millions of homes.
Chris Bowen, the energy minister, will give a speech later today, announcing that the capacity investment scheme (CIS) will expand, to underwrite 3 gigawatts of generation and underwrite 5 gigawatts of dispatchable capacity or storage.
It’s right that the sunniest and windiest continent remains at the forefront of solar and wind innovation – and this backing shows the government intends for it to stay that way.
Bowen says the latest Gencost report, prepared by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator, shows firmed renewables are the lowest cost form of new energy generation.
The report says the cost of solar fell by 8% and the cost of batteries fell by 20% last year.
Bowen says:
Now around halfway through the CIS, and with the cost of deploying solar and batteries declining faster than expected, we have an opportunity to supercharge our transition.
