Australian news and politics recap April 3: Anthony Albanese falls off stage on campaign trail in NSW

The Nightly’s Jackson Hewett is analysing Donald Trump’s tariff announcement.

He writes: Sweeping US tariffs will trigger a complete reorganisation, with no country spared significant imposts beginning at midnight US time.

A minimum 10 per cent will be applied to every exporter to the United States, including Australia, but even higher tariffs will be placed on other nations the US President Donald Trump believes have been “ripping us off” for years.

China will be hit with an additional 34 per cent tariff on top of the steep tariff already, while the European Union will be charged 20 per cent.

The US Trade Representative, in a 400-page report released Wednesday, detailed tariff and non-tariff barriers across 61 countries and Mr Trump, standing in the Rose Garden Wednesday afternoon (US time), held up a chart showing how 25 countries would be affected.

Developing countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia are getting hit with tariffs ranging between 25 per cent and 46 per cent.

Hi-tech US allies have not been spared, with Mr Trump calling out Japan, Taiwan and South Korea for being beneficiaries of American largess when it comes to defence and technology transfer, allowing them to build up their own manufacturing base.

Taiwan, the centre of the semiconductor industry, is particularly hard hit with a 32 per cent tariff, while Japan and South Korea will receive tariffs of 24-25 per cent.

Read the full analysis.

David Jochinke, President of the National Farmers’ Federation, says he expects the Government to help Australians avoid US President Donald Trump’s 10 per cent tariff, which goes against Australia’s free trade agreement with the US.

“For starters, the 10 per cent tariff on all goods that go into the US will affect every product, obviously,” He told Sunrise.

“Australia does export a lot of beef and sheep meat, as well as wine into the US, so this essentially means that our product would be 10 per cent more than what it was prior to the tariff coming in.

“For us, it is absolutely disappointing that we’re caught up in this conversation, in this trade war globally, because we are a strong trading partner with the US.

“We’ve got 20 years of being a reliable, high-quality supplier of goods and we are going to be working with Government to ensure that not only we exercise our rights underneath our free trade agreement with the US, but also to use every diplomatic means to demonstrate that we are in a spot where there’s a trading deficit and we shouldn’t have any tariffs applied to us at all.”

US President Donald Trump said all countries would be hit with a “baseline tariff” of 10 per cent, with other countries punished for their tariffs on the US.

Australia has been slapped with a 10 per cent tariff, the minimum baseline.

Both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton are out on the Federal election campaign trial today and are expected to speak shortly.

“The European Union are tough traders. Very tough,” Mr Trump said.

“You think of Europeans as very friendly, they rip us off!

“It is so sad to see.

“It is sopathetic, 39 per cent.

“We are going to charge them 20 per cent.”

US President Donald Trump said some countries are getting a discounted tariff rate.

“We will challenge (some of) them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us,” Mr Trump said.

“So 26 tariffs will be, not a full reciprocal.

“I would like to see the chart.

“If you look at that! China first row, China 67 per cent.

“That is tariffs charged to the US including currency manipulationand trade barrier.

“So we will be challenging a discountedreciprocal tariff of 34 per cent.”

US President Doanld Trump has revealed his “kind” tariffs, holding up a board showing how much other countries charge the United States next to a column showing how much Mr Trump will tariff them.

A fact sheet handed out by US President Donald Trump’s team reveals Australia’s new tariff rate.

Australia will be slapped with 10 per cent according to the face sheet.

“Starting tomorrow, the United States will implement reciprocal tariffs on other nations,” Mr Trump said.

“It has been a long time since we even thought of that.

“We used to think about it a lot. We didn’t think about it for many decades and you see what has happened.

“For nations that treat us badly, we will calculate the combined rate of all of their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating and because we are being very kind, we are kind people, very kind - you are not so kind when you get ripped off with salaries, many autoworkers friends and all of the unions that typically voted Democrat, they are not voting Democrat anymore, they are voting for Republicans now.”

US President Donald Trump has called out Australia in his “Liberation Day” tariff announcement”.

Mr Trump said Australians are “wonderful people” before hitting out at our nation.

“They ban American beef, yet we’ve imported $3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone.

“They won’t take any of our beef.

“They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers.

“You know what, I don’t blame them, but we are doing the same thing right now, starting about midnight tonight.”

“For decades the United States slashed our trade barriers on other countries while those countries placed massive tariffs on our products.

“In many cases the non-monetary barriers were worse than the monetary ones.

“They manipulated their currencies, subsidised their exports, stole our intellectual property, exposed vat taxes, adopted unfair rules and technical standards and created filthy pollution havens.

“But they came to us saying we are violating, we should pay for it.

“It is detailed in a very big report by the US trade representative on foreign trade barriers.”