EDITORIAL: Labor must step up efforts to sort out US tariff turmoil

Trade Minister Don Farrell reckons there’s no point in a mercy dash to the US to try to convince Donald Trump of the folly of his steel and aluminium tariffs.

His message to Australians worried about the havoc a global trade war instigated by the US President might wreak on the economy: just chill.

So relaxed is he that instead of jetting off to DC to plead Australia’s case, he spent Thursday morning fondling lobsters on board a boat in Fremantle.

“We’ll continue the discussions but we’re not going to panic,” he said.

“We’re not going to panic, we didn’t panic in the relationship with China. We were cool, calm and collected and that’s the way we’re going to be in our relationship with the United States and every other country.”

That’s skating over the fact that extracting Australia from Xi Jinping’s diplomatic deep freeze — of which the Australian lobster trade was a high profile victim — took years and cost Australian exporters billions.

We don’t want another repeat of that disaster.

Labor was deeply critical of the Coalition’s handling of the China relationship in the Turnbull/Morrison eras. During that time, ministers were routinely frustrated by China’s refusal to engage in talks.

Now, we’re getting the same cold shoulder from the US — one of our strongest and most enduring allies.

Anthony Albanese’s attempts to get Mr Trump on the phone have so far come to nought. The pair hasn’t spoken since February 11, when Mr Trump told the Prime Minister he would give “great consideration” to a carve-out for Australia.

If that situation doesn’t deeply concern Mr Farrell, something is amiss.

He says we shouldn’t take his breezy approach to his ministerial responsibilities as a sign Australia has taken the continuation of the US tariffs as a done deal.

“No, no we haven’t given up trying. There’s another round of tariff impacts starting the first of April, we’ll be talking with our American counterparts to try to convince them that they’re heading in the wrong direction,” he said.

It’s that potential next round of tariffs that has business really sweating.

Exactly what they will involve is unclear at this point. But it is feared that agricultural, beef and pharmaceutical products could be next to be subject to punishing levies.

Australia needs to be on the front foot in advocating to the Americans that there would be no winners in the application of such tariffs.

So far, Australia has resisted the urge to follow Canada and the European Union in installing reciprocal levies on American products. Mr Albanese has kept his personal criticism of Mr Trump relatively constrained.

The softly-softly approach may prove to be the right one.

In the mean time, some Australians are taking matters into their own hands, pledging to boycott American products in favour of locally-made alternatives.

This is a fight in which every bit of effort helps.