Donald Trump’s lesson to Australia – put yourself first like we did | Caleb Bond

Everyone says they prefer Australian products but are we all really walking the talk, writes Caleb Bond.

Who’d have thought it would take a bloke on the other side of the world to wake Australians up to the fact that we should be buying Australian made.

Now that Donald Trump has instituted tariffs on all and sundry – though a minimal 10 per cent for Australian exports – people have suddenly realised that Australian products are fantastic and that people overseas should be able to buy them without the hindrance of tax.

If only we’d take the same attitude at home.

The vast majority of fresh produce in Australia is, thankfully, local – we don’t really have to think about it.

But most of the bacon we buy, for instance, is imported.

Do you go out of your way to buy Australian bacon? Has it ever really crossed your mind that it wouldn’t be Australian made?

And even if foodstuffs are Australian made, how much of it is actually made from Australian ingredients?

The ubiquitous squeezy bottle of Fountain barbecue sauce can boast it is Australian made because they mix it all together here but it’s actually only 35 per cent Australian.

And apart from that, it’s owned by American multinational Kraft Heinz so the profits go overseas.

Retired autoworker Brian Pannebecker shakes hands with US President Donald Trump during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House. Picture: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

Almost all of the seafood available in the frozen section of the supermarket is imported and the cheapest fish you can get at a supermarket deli is Basa – a Vietnamese catfish grown in the murky Mekong River.

Everyone says they prefer Australian products but are we all really walking the talk?

Tariffs are an anachronistic and punitive measure in the modern market but Trump is doing as he promised – he’s putting America first.

Perhaps not the consumer, who will obviously have to pay more for imported products, but certainly American manufacturing.

As much as we may be upset about the trade implications of that, you cannot blame any sovereign nation for putting its own interests first.

It’s something we should be doing far more often ourselves.

Why is about 80 per cent of our gas exported?

Likewise coal, about 90 per cent of which is exported.

We have affordable and abundant sources of energy right under our feet. But instead of burning them, because that might be bad for the environment, we send them overseas so other people can burn them and ruin the environment.

Meanwhile, we pay through the nose for renewable energy.

The Coalition’s proposal for an east coast gas reserve is worth consideration but major gas companies are already threatening to sue the taxpayer for lost profits should it happen.

We don’t produce oil anymore, either.

Of the eight oil refineries Australia had at the turn of the century, only two remain.

They are secured by the federal government until 2030 but who knows what happens then? Perhaps we won’t produce any of our own petrol.

That leaves us at the mercy of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries which, in recent years, has cut oil production to artificially inflate its value, which you then pay for at the bowser.

Other countries are clearly putting themselves first, so why aren’t we?

Originally published as Donald Trump’s lesson to Australia – put yourself first like we did | Caleb Bond