section_path: Trade conflicts by country/Oceania/Australia
section_name: Australia
paragraph_text: Australia
  
  On February 4, 2025, Treasurer Jim Chalmers addressed concerns regarding potential U.S. tariffs on Australian imports, mentioning that whilst he did not rule out the possibility of imposing counter-tariffs if Trump targeted Australia, he preferred to avoid retaliatory measures.
  
  After the announcement of a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese engaged in discussions with Trump to achieve some kind of exemption, which ended up with a statement from the White House that expressed concerns about Australia allegedly disregarding past commitments to restrain aluminum exports. Despite Albanese's efforts, the U.S. officially imposed a 25% tariff on Australian steel and aluminum, leading to him calling it an "unjustified" action, however confirming that Australia would not retaliate. Despite this, Trade Minister Don Farrell continuously attempted to achieve some kind of exemption through negotiations, but to no avail.
  
  Trump imposed a 10% tariff on Australia as part of the "reciprocal tariffs" on April 2, 2025. On April 3, 2025, Albanese stated that he would negotiate with the United States to remove tariffs and would not impose reciprocal tariffs as he believed that trade wars are a race to the bottom. He released a five-point strategy to mitigate the damage to impacted industries. The strategy includes a $50 million assistance package to help industries like beef exports find new customers. On April 9, 2025, Australia declined China's ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian offer to 'join hands' on Trump's tariffs.
  
  After Trump announced a 100 percent tariff on films produced outside the United States, as early as May 6, 2025, the Australian government called the tariffs "unjustified", leading to considerations to re-open "trade talks" with the EU, which had collapsed in 2023 when the sides could not reach an agreement on Australian agricultural exporters' access to the European market.