Trump is now reading what he described as “vicious attacks ” on American trade:

The United States charges other countries only a 2.4 tariff on motorcycles. Meanwhile, Thailand and others are charging much higher prices like 60%, India charges 70%, Vietnam charges 75%, and others are even higher than that.

Like-wise, until today, the United States has for decades charged a 2.5 tariff, think of that – 2.5% – on foreign-made automobiles.

The European Union charges us more than 10% tariffs and they have 20% VATs, much, much Higher. India charged 75%, perhaps worst of all are the non-monetary restrictions imposed by South Korea, Japan and very many other nations as a result of these colossal trade barriers. 81% of the cars in South Korea are made in South Korea. 94% of the cars in Japan are made in Japan. Toyota sells 1 million foreign-made automobiles into the United States, and General Motors sells almost none. Ford sells very little.

None of our companies are allowed to go into other countries. And I say that friend and foe and in many cases the friend is worst than the foe in terms of trade.

But such horrendous imbalances have devastated our industrial base and put our national security at risk. I don’t blame these other countries at all for this calamity, I blame former presidents and past leaders who weren’t doing their job. They let it happen and they let it happen to an extent that nobody can even believe. That’s why effective at midnight we will impose a 25% tariff on all foreign-made automobiles.

Donald Trump has brought out his allies to cheer at all the right places here:

My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day. We’ve been waiting for a long time. April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again!

Trump has been characterising this as a way to bring back wealth to America, but it’s important to remember that tariffs are taxes that Americans pay to import goods – which will be passed down to the American consumers.

The Australia Institute has compared the staggering difference between the prices Australians and Americans pay for some of the most common medicines in the world.

For example, Atorvastatin – a cholesterol pill which is among the top ten most prescribed drugs in Australia – is 125 times more expensive in the US. Australians pay $21.07 for a prescription of Atorvastatin. Americans are slugged $2,628.39 for the same medication.

A commonly used tablet for high blood pressure, Lisinopril, is almost 25 times more expensive in the US than in Australia.

More than 10 million Salbutamol asthma puffers are prescribed or sold over the counter in Australia each year. For every $30 Australians spend on these puffers, Americans are charged $50.

“Americans who can’t afford health insurance are going without life saving medicines and, in extreme cases, dying as a result,” said Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist at The Australia Institute.

“It is a shameful situation which cannot be repeated here.

“Our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is a national treasure.

“In economic terms, it’s the Australian government using its buying power to deliver cheaper medications for all Australians.

“It is not a restriction on trade.

“Regardless of what the US drug companies think of this practice, the Australian government has a sovereign right to design policy that benefits Australians.

“If the price of maintaining our relationship with the US is paying exorbitant prices for medicine, then Australians will inevitably ask the question – is this a friend we really want?”

Anthony Albanese was also doing media until late in the day on Wednesday. Speaking to the ABC radio Brisbane host Ellen Fanning, he was asked if he would “fight” Trump (Dutton said in a Sky interview that if he had to, he would “fight with Trump [or any world leader] in a heartbeat” in an attempt to address concerns Malcolm Turnbull raised about how Dutton would react if prime minister, when it came to Trump, given that so many in his support network (Rinehart, Murdoch) were pro-Trump)

Albanese:

We will stand up for Australia’s national interest. I don’t take these issues as personal with President Trump. That’s not the way that you get diplomatic action, and you get engagement between nations. What I will do is stand up for Australia’s national interests, as I did after the decision on aluminium and steel, and as I will if there are any decisions made against Australia’s national interest. And that is why we have refused in the negotiations that we have had with the United States, we have refused to compromise or negotiate on Australia’s national interest, whether that is keeping the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, keeping our biosecurity rules that are so important for Australia’s agricultural products, albeit our Media Bargaining Code as well.

All of those issues, we have stood up to the United States and said they are not up for negotiation. Now, Peter Dutton isn’t a part of those discussions.

And when he had a chance to stand up for Australia’s national interest last time, he chose to stand up with President Trump at that time.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers was out doing media late yesterday to try and calm people’s farms about the coming tariffs.

He told the ABC:

I mean, first of all, if we are impacted by these next rounds of tariffs, we won’t be uniquely impacted by them, the same way that we weren’t uniquely impacted by the steel and aluminium tariffs. It’s something that’s been applied and imposed on the rest of the world. We think in self-defeating ways, we’ve made that clear as well.

Our job is to make sure that in the face of all of these escalating trade tensions and all this global economic uncertainty, that we make our economy even more resilient, which was a big theme of the budget, and also that we make sure that we make our export markets even more diverse.

The Prime Minister was talking about this this morning [Wednesday]…In the face of these escalating trade tensions, we will do everything we can to make our export markets more diverse, to make our economy more resilient, to stand up for and speak up for the things which make us Australian, like Medicare, like the PBS, like our strong biosecurity arrangements. Those will be our priorities, whatever the decision that’s announced out of D.C. in the next 12 to 24 hours looks like.

Hello and welcome to US servitude day, where everyone becomes convinced that Donald Trump applying tariffs to goods his nation imports to prove a non-existence points somehow means we all just have to kowtow to him a little harder.

Trump is calling it ‘liberation’ day. The announcements will start coming in around 7am Australian time and there are some feverish fingers on keyboards and very agitated voices already.

So first, let’s take a look at what Australia exports to the United States, and what could therefore have tariffs applied to it under whatever Trump’s administration announces.

Here are the top 12 exports to the US, according to Trading Economics

It is pharmaceutical products which have most people worried, given the issues American drug giants have had with Australia’s PBS (which subsidises the cost of certain medicines in Australia) over the years.

But the Trump administration have also had issues with Australia’s biosecurity conditions for meat and poultry imports, as well as the News Media Bargaining Code (which has the tech bro oligarchs all up in arms). There is sort of a unity ticket between Albanese and Dutton on not compromising on those three areas, given the importance of the PBS and Australia’s own agricultural industry. The News Media Bargaining Code is probably one of the only areas where Murdoch diverges from Trump on policies, mostly because News Corp is a beneficiary. So there is some united rah-rah, although that hasn’t stopped Dutton from attacking Albanese over Australia being included in the global tariff assault Trump is inflicting on friend and foe alike – even though there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what he is doing.

Australia imports much more from the US than it exports. We are, as they say in the global economic game, in a trade deficit with the United States and have been since Harry S Truman was president.

How much is this going to matter? Well it matters that Australia’s “exceptional friend” the United States is applying trade tariffs to allies, which has all the hallmarks of starting a global trade war, because of ideological issues he has with free trade and the belief that no one can move without America.

But as has been pointed out time and time again, nations have begun looking elsewhere for their trade arrangements pretty much since the first Trump presidency, when he first went on a tariff bender, and that has seen China (the original target of Trump’s tariffs) benefit. In fact, trade started to deviate away from the US during the global financial crisis, when American markets weren’t looking too crash hot and many nations have found other homes for their products (Mexico being an exception).

So again, it is more about the wider issues of what does this mean for Australia’s relationship with the US, given the strategic ties governments from both the Coalition and Labor have made with the US and how our leaders now handle that (and everything else that is coming) given the Trump take over of American institutions and increasing authoritarian crack downs on the US population?

We probably won’t get the answers we should today, but we should hope that we at least start getting the questions.

You’ve got the entire Australia Institute brains trust with you to help guide you through the day – and me, Amy Remeikis at the helm. It is going to be at least a six coffee day. And it’s Thursday. The worst day of the week even without all of this.

May Dolly help us all.

Ready? Let’s get into it.