By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he told U.S. president-elect Donald Trump in a phone call the United States has a trade surplus with Australia and it was in Washington’s interest to “trade fairly” with its ally.
Trump has proposed a 10% tariff on all U.S. imports and a 60% levy on Chinese-made products.
Giving detail of last week’s phone call with Trump, Albanese said in a radio interview on Wednesday he had raised the issue of trade with Trump.
“The United States has a trade surplus with Australia, so it is in the United States’ interests to trade fairly with Australia,” he said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Under the first Trump presidency, Australia won an exemption from U.S. tariffs for its aluminium and steel exports.
The United States is Australia’s major security ally, and the U.S. will sell nuclear powered submarines to Australia under the AUKUS partnership. A rotating force of marines are hosted in the northern city of Darwin, where air bases are being upgraded to cater for U.S. bomber aircraft.
China is Australia’s largest export market, with trade dominated by iron ore, gas and coal.
Albanese, who will travel to the APEC and G20 summits in Peru and Brazil over the next few days, said his focus was on “free and fair trade”, amid strategic competition between the United States and China.
“We think that we can play a role as a middle power … we of course have an alliance with the United States, but China is our major trading partner,” he said.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Sonali Paul)
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