Washington: Donald Trump’s top trade adviser says Australia is “killing” the US aluminium market, in a blow to Canberra’s hopes for an exemption from the president’s 25 per cent tariffs on aluminium and steel.
Peter Navarro, senior counsellor to Trump on trade and manufacturing, repeated accusations that Australian exporters were flooding the US market in contravention of an agreement between the two countries.
Peter Navarro, White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.Credit: AP
“Australia is just killing our aluminium market. President Trump says, ‘No, no, we’re not doing that anymore’,” Navarro told CNN on Wednesday (AEDT).
“What they do is they just flood our markets after Biden gave them an agreement that said, ‘don’t flood our markets, you can have a reasonable amount’. That’s what we’re dealing with.
“Our aluminium industry is on its back. It’s at 50 per cent capacity utilisation … in Australia it’s 90 per cent. And we can’t afford not to have strong aluminium and steel industries.”
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The comments come less than 24 hours after Trump told Prime Minister Anthony Albanese he would give “great consideration” to an exemption, largely based on the US enjoying a trade surplus with Australia. Albanese was “a very fine man”, Trump said following a 40-minute phone call on Tuesday.
The question to Trump about Australia in the Oval Office specifically referenced steel imports, so it was possible Trump only had steel in mind when he said he was considering an exemption, rather than aluminium.
A tariff proclamation issued by the White House hours later singled out Australia for criticism. “The volume of US imports of primary aluminum from Australia has also surged and in 2024 was approximately 103 per cent higher than the average volume for 2015 through 2017,” the proclamation said.
