As Anthony Albanese once said Donald Trump ‘scares the s**t out of me’, it turns out, he was right to be scared

Facing an election and a hot serve of tariff madness, Anthony Albanese now has to deal with an 800-pound political gorilla wearing a Donald Trump suit.

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Anthony Albanese’s vintage prediction that Donald Trump “scares the s**t out of me” proved spookily accurate this week, as Australia was delivered a hot serve of tariff madness.

Say what you like about the wisdom of Albo sharing his unplugged views on the now US President with an ABC comedian at a hippy festival called Splendour in the Grass way back in 2017.

Turns out, he was right to be scared.

“We have an alliance with the US, we’ve got to deal with him (Trump), but that doesn’t mean that you’re uncritical about it,” Mr Albanese told a Q&A at Splendour in the Grass in July that year, six months into Mr Trump’s first administration.

“He (Mr Trump) scares the s**t out of me … and I think it’s of some concern the leader of the free world thinks that you can conduct politics through 140 characters on Twitter overnight.”

Donald Trump has made no secret of his views on tariffs.

Eight years later, Trump’s mate Elon Musk has bought X and is roaming the White House in a baseball cap with his kid known as Lil X – or by his full name X Æ A-Xii – on his shoulders while the US President is bringing back plastic straws.

Oh and of course, slapping a 25 per cent tariff on Australian steel and aluminium exports.

We live in weird and wild times.

Donald Trump has made no secret of his views on tariffs.

“To me, tariff is a very beautiful word. It’s a word that’s going to make our country rich again. Without tariffs, we have a busted country,’’ he once mused.

And no, he doesn’t seem to care that the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal called it “the dumbest trade war in history”.

As the WSJ observed, the whole affair “reminds us of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it’s risky to be America’s enemy but it can be fatal to be its friend”, adding that with the exception of China, “Mr Trump’s justification for this economic assault on the neighbours makes no sense”.

“Mr Trump sometimes sounds as if the US shouldn’t import anything at all, that America can be a perfectly closed economy making everything at home,” the editorial continued.

“This is called autarky, and it isn’t the world we live in, or one that we should want to live in, as Mr Trump may soon find out.”

In response, Trump took to social media and hit the all caps hard on his iPhone complaining about a RIPOFF OF AMERICA, both with regard to TRADE, CRIME, AND POISONOUS DRUGS that are allowed to so freely flow into AMERICA.

“THOSE DAYS ARE OVER!”, Trump thundered, “the USA has major deficits … we’re not going to be the ‘Stupid Country’ any longer.”

Which brings us to Australia. What we have going in our favour is that the US has a large bilateral trade surplus with Australia.

Anthony Albanese on the phone with Donald Trump

Shortly after signing the tariff order where he insisted there would be no exceptions, he confirmed that Australia might secure a better deal.

“Mr President, the Australian Prime Minister has said you are considering an exemption for Australia on steel. Is that correct?,” Mr Trump was asked.

“I just spoke to him. Very fine man. He has a surplus,” the US leader said.

“We have a surplus with Australia. One of the few. And the reason is they buy a lot of aeroplanes.

“They’re rather far away and they need lots of aeroplanes. We actually have a surplus. It’s one of the only countries which we do.

“And I told him that that’s something that we’ll give great consideration to.”

So far, so good. A grinning Anthony Albanese had emerged just hours earlier to express the view that he was cautiously confident a deal could be reached.

Critics suggesting that it was realistic to get a tariff deal in that first phone call are showing their own bias.

It took Malcolm Turnbull months.

There’s nothing to suggest that Mr Albanese should not be pleased with getting a public declaration from the US President that a carve-out is at least possible.

But there are no guarantees for Anthony Albanese that this will not blow up in his face during the election, given that he now has an 800-pound political gorilla roaming the world stage wearing a Donald Trump suit.

The issue of Australia’s aluminium exports is more fraught. Donald Trump has accused Australia of breaking its word on aluminium exports in a new presidential order issued by the US.

Donald Trump’s top trade adviser Peter Navarro this week unleashed on Australia for ‘killing the aluminium market’. Picture: AFP

The presidential proclamation on the aluminium tariffs says Australia “disregarded a verbal commitment” to limit aluminium exports.

That’s based on a verbal agreement that Scott Morrison offered to Trump that was later disregarded and not enforced by the Democratic president Joe Biden.

But there’s no signed deal. Both sides remember the talks differently.

Trump’s top trade adviser Peter Navarro, who was at the original negotiations with Morrison,is on the warpath, accusing Australia of “killing the aluminium market”.

“Australia is crushing, just crushing – with the help of China – our aluminium sector,” Mr Trump’s senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing told Fox News.

“The President says no more country exemptions, no more product exclusions. We’re going to run into a beautiful golden age.”

And that’s why when Trade Minister Don Farrell lands in the US shortly for talks with his counterpart, his first job will be to ensure that Navarro’s pursuit of Australia over tariffs, which has now run for years, can be negotiated into beautiful submission.

Originally published as As Anthony Albanese once said Donald Trump ‘scares the s**t out of me’, it turns out, he was right to be scared