LATIKA M BOURKE: US Democratic Senator Chris Coons says next President must stop hitting allies with tariffs

Chris Coons, a senior Democratic Senator has said Congress must reassert control over the next President, including limiting the power of the White House to slap allies with unjustified tariffs.

Last week, the Trump administration launched a fresh tariff blitz on 60 countries, including allies such as Japan, the European Union and Australia.

Speaking at General Motors proving ground in Michigan on Monday, US President Donald Trump acknowledged the international backlash but said it would be good for domestic automakers.

“The rest of the world doesn’t love me, but that’s OK … It’s called America First,” he told reporters.

Unlike last year’s so-called Liberation Day, Australia — which has a free trade agreement and runs a trade deficit with the US — was hit with a higher duty than other allies, such as the UK.

Last year, when former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was the Ambassador to the US, Australia’s tariff rate was the lowest introduced at 10 per cent, which meant Australia had a competitive advantage over most other nations and actually increased its trade to the US as a result.

But this year, and with career bureaucrat Greg Moriarty in the role of Ambassador to US, the Trump administration has hit Australia a little harder, increasing the impost to 12.5 per cent, while keeping countries like the UK at 10 per cent.

The US has cited modern slavery as the reason, which the Australian government and Opposition have outright rejected. Mr Trump has used various reasons to justify his tariffs, including national security, trade deficits, as well as geopolitical stoushes such as his threat to conquer Greenland.

Speaking to The Nightly before the fresh tariffs were announced, Senator Coons said Mr Trump had broken trust with allies and undermined US credibility by slashing USAID.

“I don’t believe most of our allies will trust us again in the same way and we need to recognise that that means legislative changes constraining presidential power to act in ways that are corrupt, in ways that are precipitous,” he said.

“The tool of tariffs has to be put back in the shed and constrained to be used only in moments that actually serve our national security industries.

“Some of the very real possibilities for meaningful partnerships on everything from AI to chips to critical minerals have to be made more solid, longer-term, and I’m co-leading a bipartisan bicameral bill on each of those areas.”

Senator Coons is one of few senators who regularly travels on bipartisan and bicameral Congressional delegations. His recent trips have included Australia, the Pacific, the Munich Security Conference, Greenland and the last NATO summit in Turkey.

He said more of his colleagues needed to leave US shores to realise the magnitude of what Mr Trump had done to relations with friendly countries with his trade wars and menacing threats against allies.

“Far too many Americans dismiss the Greenland episode as just a passing fit by Trump. Every NATO ally leader I have spoken to said that was a watershed moment for them and that is a trust issue,” he said.

“In the American popular press, that issue went away in two weeks because everyone said, ‘Oh, that was just Trump,’ but not in Europe.

He likened it to a breakdown in a marriage.

“There are some things you don’t joke about, there are some sentences you never say. You don’t ever say: ‘I never liked your mother’, right? Like, there’s stuff you just can’t take back.”

“You say that, or you do that, and it’s a long time before things are OK again and saying, I’m going to take NATO territory by force, that’s not funny. You don’t say that.

“No one thought that was a joke, that created a massive trust deficit that now has to be addressed.

“I regularly urge my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, to invest more time in being present to provide a reassuring counterbalance and to hear firsthand what damage is being done because we cannot simply assert that we’re going to return to where we were several years ago.

“So, first Congress has to reassert itself and not just simply do whatever a strong old President demands, and second, we have to show persistence — a small group showing up here and there doesn’t make any difference.”

Professor Michael Green, CEO of the US Studies Centre at The University of Sydney, said the President was embarking on political, strategic and economic self-harm.

“Trump is fixated on tariffs even though the courts have struck down most of his original effort and the public disapproves of his approach on the economy and cost of living (made worse by tariffs) by two-to-one. It is political, economic and strategic self harm but high tariffs have been his leitmotif since the 1980s, and he is not giving them up,” Professor Green said.

“The anti-slavery pretext is flimsy so we will see if these also get struck down by the courts in time.”

Trade Minister Don Farrell is due to speak to his US counterpart, Jamieson Greer and has said the tariffs are unjustified.

Opposition leader Angus Taylor has called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to secure an exemption.

“This Prime Minister, you know, he talks a big game and never delivers. He needs to sit down with the President and say ‘not good enough’,’” he said.

“We’ve fought alongside the United States in every war, every major war since Federation. And he needs to sit down with the President and get an exemption for Australia.”