James Campbell: For Donald Trump, Australia’s trade surplus with the US is more important than shared history
Whether or not Australia avoids US tariffs, Donald Trump has made one thing clear — aeroplane purchases are more important to the US president than our shared history.
Opinion
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So are we or aren’t we getting a chop out?
On Monday night Washington time Donald Trump made good on this threat to impose a tariff of 25 per cent on aluminium and steel “without exceptions or exemptions”.
That would seem to be the end of it – no deal.
But wait….
Asked in the Oval Office by an English reporter if Albo was right to claim he’s considering making an exception for us, Trump praised the Prime Minister as “a very fine man” and continued: “He has a surplus. I mean we have a surplus with Australia – one of the few – and the reason is they buy a lot of aeroplanes – they are rather far away and they need lots of aeroplanes and we actually have a surplus. It’s one of the only countries which we do and I told him that’s something we will give great consideration to.”
Which suggests that an exception or exemption might be on the cards for us after all.
Unlike the UK.
When the inquisitive Pom pressed on and asked was there any chance an exception might be made for them too, he got a very blunt response: “We have a big deficit with the UK. Big difference.”
In other words if Australia ends up being spared these tariffs the decisive factor won’t be the depth or importance of our two countries’ relationship, either historically, or going forward.
It will simply be because they sell more to us than we do to them.
The good news is that with us set to continue being “rather far away” and therefore needing “lots of aeroplanes” this trade balance is unlikely to change any time soon.
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Originally published as James Campbell: For Donald Trump, Australia’s trade surplus with the US is more important than shared history
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