Dear Australia, please retaliate. If things get awful enough here, we might be able to depose him.
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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Trump targeting a country with no border and no real reliance on the US exposes the fentanyl and migrants excuses at complete bullshit. Trump is breaking Americas relationships because his real name is Krasnov and Putin told him to do it.
Australia may not retaliate openly but, as an American, I hope they do a bunch of petty shit like exhaustively search and delay every shipment from U.S. and say, “We’re looking for fentanyl. We heard it comes from Canada and goes through America.” If you’re obnoxious enough, it can be just like a tariff.
It's the message it sends to the rest of the world. No longer are the democratic nations unified - instead others are trying to do what best for themselves in the short term to the detriment of all the others.
Yep the west is falling apart.
Europe is now more aligned than ever, and we're looking into starting to produce a lot more of all different stuff. Yeah, it'll take a long time to start up productions, but at least we got the push to start it!
Canada here. Can we join your club?
You have my vote!
You don't need to tariff anything if you remove shit from the shelf and no one wants to buy your shit anymore specifically to spite your leader.
Because that is ever going to happen in Australia?
Presumably you aren't Australian because that's already started and it hasn't exactly been quiet.
That's a minority. From what I've seen, the vast majority of Aussies are sheep, happy to be abused by their government and manipulated by corporations and propaganda (take your pick which). It's just another fractured society, with apathetic masses turning away from the real world and living in their own bubbles of discontent.
You sound depressed boss.
I'm as chipper as I've ever been! :-)
I tend to assume people that speak of people as sheep alongside things about fractured societies to either be racist or depressed, in my experience that's just how it tends to appear. I mean statistically you're wrong, of course there are products you pretty much have to buy from the us if you want them that said American companies market share is reducing and products are being replaced on shelves.
To put it into perspective, perhaps we just need to understand how much we export to the United States, Aussie raw materials are exported to many diverse countries, data from the Department of Foreign Affairs states exports of iron ore mostly go to countries like China, Japan, and South Korea, in 2022, approximately 1% of Australia’s total iron ore exports were sent to the United States (general data seems to reflect the same for the 2024 fiscal year). The US has primary sources for these materials that are domestic mines or they are imported from other countries such as Brazil and Canada.
On the other hand aluminium is slightly different. In 2022, around 10% of Australia’s total aluminium exports were directed towards the United States. Still though, this doesn't represent an enormous impact on Australian mineral resource exports where these numbers only reflect 0.075% of the Aussie GDP.
Yeah, Australia isn't a big raw goods trading partner with the US for obvious reasons. They don't need to do much but sit back and watch the idiocy of what Trump is doing.
Eh, if Australia retaliated with their own tariffs then all that would happen is that Australia’s economy would be damaged more compared to if they had not which only benefits Trump. It is just bait to get Australia to commit to harming their own economy. Australia doesn’t really have much sway in America’s economy as far as I know.
They're just stabbing the EU and Canada in the back. This is BASIC game theory. You need to retaliate otherwise the game is lost. But they would rather hitch their wagon to the new Nazi regime to help their economy? Disgusting.
Retaliate by destroying your own economy and gaining Sweet FA out of it? I’d be more willing to agree if you can actually show me how retaliating with own tariffs would disadvantage Trump in any way. No, it is just bait to get Australia to commit to harming their own economy so Trump can buy everything up.
Why do you think all the other countries have retaliatory tariffs? It's to hurt the US back. If their goods are now more expensive, then competing products are now cheaper in comparison and capitalism does it's thing. This is basic, basic trade war stuff.
Edit: Ahh fuck, you're just a troll. Anyone else reading this, just check their post history. Carry on.
I'm Aussie, and Albo is a cunt, but I don't want us to retaliate economically yet.
Like others have said it's a minor impact on our industry so far. I'm more concerned about taxing these mining and resources corporations.
A tariff is a tax on the country imposing the tariff. The only way it actually hurts the country that the tariff is placed against, is if people stop buying the foreign products. But in the case of a tax on steel or aluminum, that would require people to avoid all products made with foreign steel/aluminum. This is nearly impossible. So it only hurts Australians in this case.
Plus that's not how capitalism works. A real example from Trump's first term was a tariff imposed on washing machines. The tariff made foreign washing machines more expensive than domestic ones. So far, so good. What did American companies do? Raised the price of domestic washing machines to match that of foreign ones in a greedy grab for profits. This meant the incentive to buy American washing machines was nullified. You know what people also buy when they buy a washer in the US? They buy a dryer. So the price of dryers went up as well, even though there was no tariff on those. So in the end all that happened was Americans wound up spending more for washers and dryers. Why would a country want to do that to its own people?
You're screwed no matter what you do. As right wing as Australia has become, I can't believe I'm saying this, but good job Australia.
There are other ways to retaliate. China doesn't mess around. They outright banned certain companies from operating there and denied sales of certain needed elements to the US.
Problem is that Australia has a trade deficit with the US and with an election in a couple of months, retaliating only means the right wing opposition has a greater chance of winning and the right wing opposition wants to give rare mineral deposits to America.
Do you see why this is a problem?
Edit: And I am just called a troll because I don’t want Australian MAGA, LOL.
That's ridiculous. Retaliating has done nothing but strengthen resolve and brought a new level of patriotism to all the countries that retaliated. They now have a shared common enemy. Not to mention the effects on the economy would largely be felt medium to longer term.
Then there's the whole stabbing allies in the back too - that has a cost.
EDIT: Look at this polling data and try and tell me issuing retaliatory measures hurts the party that enacts them:
Yeah no.
Again, Australia has a trade deficit with the US and what America pays for Australian steel and aluminum makes up just a tiny fraction of Australia’s GDP but on the other hand, Australia import far more from the US than they export.
Meaning people would just look at the increased inflation that retaliation would cause and say that is why you should vote the other side.
Australia has no bargaining chip unlike Canada nor is it as intertwined with American economy like Canada is (whom can actually damage American economy because for example, Canada exports oil and electricity to US).
And it’s not like Australians are just taking punches from America as, “Aussies have vowed to boycott American goods”.
EDIT: I Goofed
NumdaQA already pointed out you're utterly wrong, but some additional context might help:
- The opposition says the government should have grovelled more to avoid the tariff, they wouldn't ever retaliate with their own.
- The Australian Steel industry does not give a shit.
So while I get it makes sense in Canada, and we are similar countries in a lot of ways, but on this issue we're just at different political places.
Canada had the Conservatives with a 30 point lead before the Liberals implemented tariffs against the US and now the Liberals are leading. Canada's Cons are also pretty cozy with the US and the leader is basically a Trump wannabe.
You can try to justify bending the knee to the US, but don't tell me they aren't, and stabbing their allies in the back in the process.
Appreciate the context though.
Not only do they NOT have a deficit, they had the third largest suplus.
Huh? Your source literally shows that America has a trade surplus with Australia and that Australia runs a significant trade deficit with the US.
If you actually care to look at it, you noticed that US exports more to Australia than they import, that is why
Trade Imbalance (USD Billion) = 17.7
Because exports to Australia (33.6)
Is larger than imports from Australia (15.9)
So 33.6-15.9 is 17.7
The U.S. goods trade surplus with Australia was $17.9 billion in 2024, a 1.6 percent increase ($279.7 million) over 2023.
Nice, you yourself even admit that US has a trade surplus with Australia. LOL
Do you not know what: “Australia has a trade deficit with the US” means?
It means America has a trade surplus with Australia aka Australia imports more from America than they export to America or in other words America exports to Australia more than they import from Australia thus America have a trade surplus with Australia and Australia has a trade deficit with America.
Fair enough, I goofed on the deficit front. Still stand by my parent point though.
Retaliatory measures don't have to include taxing your own people. I suggest merely rallying people around the cause of boycotting US products does more good.
You need the capitalist system to divest from America and tariffs are the way. Then capitalism kicks in and finds either alternative sources, or creates new ones.
It's like asking people to recycle more to help climate change.
A bully just punched you on the face. And all other kids are telling him to fuck off, but Australia would rather take the beating, not say anything and hope it doesn't get any worse. And honestly - it's pathetic. This isn't the time for inaction.
Probably because you're a Russian troll who blames Ukraine for being invaded...
Tariffs don't hurt the country that they're aimed at. They hurt the country they come from. What aren't you getting?
Sorry, you think the US putting tariffs on Australian products for instance, doesn't hurt Australia? Huh? Of course they do. Now importers in the US will pay more for those Australian goods, and now there is incentive to look at alternatives. So Australia makes less sales of those products. The ENTIRE point of the tariffs on Canada is to economically strain them to force them to join the US.
Now would these tariffs also hurt the US? Yes, but not symmetrically. Hence all other countries issuing retaliatory tariffs.
Why do you think other countries are doing this?
And frankly, the US isn't the only trade partner in the world.
It's a large economy but not the only economy. These tariffs from the US are dumb because the end result is that the US will be excluded from world trade just like Iran or North Korea is.
Yeah, we should definitely hurt Canada economically. I mean screw our best ally and longest lasting friendship.
So which is it not doing anything because they basically do no trading with America or it we'll destroy their economy?
Not mutually exclusive.
Australia has a trade deficit with America.
American tariffs impact Australia's exports to America which frankly aren't much.
If Australia retaliates, this would impact America's exports to Australia which would be far more economically damaging.
Hope the king has a chat with these Common Wealth goofs. United we stand, divided we fall.
I see Australia also has their own version of the Democrats. Surely if they just prostrate themselves hard enough the general public will see their inherent righteousness and reward them.
yep, pollys are all spineless, corporate-backed, silver-spooned, cockroaches that only care about not having A Current Affair talk about them tonight.
i havent seen a headline with albeneses name jn it for weeks, all i hear is about dutton and turnball. australian politics has, and always will be, a fucking joke and a disgrace to the people.
Finally! Someone who gets it.