Trade war threat a wake-up call to reset our economy

The present and unfolding trade war is Australia’s wake-up call. A real war will cut our shipping lanes and internet cables. Within a week we will have shortages of fuel, medical supplies for our hospitals, the supermarket shelves will quickly empty and banking will come to a halt. We are so dependent on global trade and communication. We need essential services here, in this country, independent of global trade. It will cost us the easy life of cheap imported goods but we should use this crisis to rebalance our economy to establish essential manufacturing.

Alan Woodward, South Melbourne, Vic

What is missing from most reports on tariffs are the tariffs applied to US goods imported into each country. That was a core part of the White House presentation. It might not be much in Australia but many countries have high barriers against US goods. Do our low tariffs really help us?

Low labour cost regimes and poor safety standards in certain countries give them an unfair advantage over our over-regulated/union-dominated industries – perhaps we should look at ourselves a bit harder?

Brian Povey, Churchlands, WA

David Littleproud at the weekend repeated the nonsense that Peter Dutton could have got a better deal for Australia out of Donald Trump’s tariffs than Anthony Albanese. This is trying to be logical in an illogical situation.

There is no negotiation with Trump on tariffs. He is a fanatic about them. As John Howard has no doubt tried to remind Peter Dutton, Australia had an actual free-trade treaty with the US, which Trump has simply torn up. Even Howard knows that going to Washington to negotiate now would be an act of grovelling.

Grant Agnew, Coopers Plains, Qld

Donald Trump’s archaic mindset that has given us the tariff wars has totally ignored the role of the global trade in services that makes up one-third of all international commerce.

The relative proportion of goods to services was 24 to 8 trillion US dollars in 2024. The trade in services will only increase as the digital revolution rolls on, where weightless intelligence will ultimately dominate the coming AI world

David Hurburgh, Opossum Bay, Tas

Paul Kelly correctly opines that the pro-Trump bandwagon in Australia will soon resemble a broken jalopy (“Trump goes rogue before the world”, 5-6/4). Trump has made an unjustified direct assault on Australia’s trade, agricultural exports, our beef industry and economic interests, as Kelly writes. Accordingly, Trump would be kryptonite in Australian politics right now. Any so-called reciprocal tariff for Australia would be zero not 10 per cent. Trump says Australia has banned American beef. That is not true. We just want to keep out selected beef that potentially has “mad cow disease”. There is no political capital left in this federal election for those associating with Trump.

David Muir, Indooroopilly, Qld

It’s a mistake to believe Donald Trump’s 10 per cent tariff against Australia merits the current level of vilification. The tariff is an immediate impost on the US consumer. Every backyard economist knows there is a very considerable timeline before their production can dampen the demand for the imported product.

A great deal of modification will happen in this space. Now is the time for our government to act like a government and not pander to the multitude of special-interest groups.

Gordon Starke, Subiaco, WA

As Adam Creighton recently noted in another excellent piece, tariffs are simply another type of tax (“Albanese owes the Donald a big debt of gratitude”, 4/4). It’s another add-on to the cost of production and exchange of goods and services necessary to fund a government that should serve the people, not the reverse. Tariffs are a Band-Aid over the festering of income taxes, a relic of the 19th century that resulted in a tax system based on redistribution of wealth at the expense of creation of wealth. Productivity is the name of the game. With the best tax system in the world, based on the use of a stable currency, we would need no tariff barriers and the goods and services of producers worldwide would be knocking at the door.

John McRobert, Indooroopilly, Qld