There is still a lot of commentary over the Trump tariffs and whether or not the Albanese government could have done more to change the 10% tariff which was applied to Australian goods being imported into the US.

The SMH’s US corro Michael Koziol reported Trump was asked about Australia and told reporters:

They are calling, and I will be talking to him, yes.

Chalmers told ABC radio RN Breakfast that he would leave it to his colleagues (he means the prime minister) to work out when that might be but added:

Obviously, Australia, like every country around the world, is engaging with the Americans right now. We’re no different. We are not uniquely impacted by these tariffs, but we are uniquely well-placed and well-prepared.

Now, there has been a bit of commentary around Albanese’s comment about not being sure if Trump had a mobile phone (made during the last leaders’ debate on Sunday night) (Trump has a phone) and that under the Coalition, Australia managed to secure an exemption from the last round of Trump tariffs.

That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of THIS Trump administration. No country in the world has escaped tariffs this time round (cept for Russia and Trump says this is because the US and Russia ‘do no business) and tariffs were also one of the underpinnings of Trump 2.0s election platform. He, and those around him, are obsessed with tariffs as a general rule. It is only now, after massive domestic backlash and the market acting exactly as a scholar of Marxism would expect the market to react, that Trump is starting to backdown on some of the more outlandish tariffs. But so far, there has been no movement on the 10% tariff floor which applies to all countries as a baseline.

So the Coalition achieving an exemption in the last Trump administration is completely irrelevant because THIS round of tariffs apply to everyone, when the last time Trump was in office, they did not.

Now on the issue of the phone, it was a pretty stupid thing to say. Obviously Trump has a phone. The man is terminally on-line. What Albanese was trying to say is that it is not the relationship where you just ring up and say ‘hey, wyd?’ and that conversations between Australia and US leaders are always a formal affair.