SYDNEY, July 26 (Reuters) - Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday he would seek to raise the issue of tariffs with U.S. President Donald Trump, after Washington this week imposed new tariffs on its trading partners including Australia.
The United States on Friday imposed new tariffs on goods from 60 trading partners, alleging those countries failed to curb the trade of goods made by forced labour, just as a temporary 10% global tariff expired.
The Albanese-led Labor government has described the tariffs as unjustified and says it wants them removed.
Albanese, asked on Sunday if he would seek to discuss the issue with Trump, said “absolutely”.
“We’ll raise it at every level in the Australia-U.S. relationship, we’ve already done so,” he said in televised remarks.
Australia has very strong provisions on modern slavery and was “strengthening those even further by going through the supply chain issues and making sure that indeed substantial fines and penalties can be paid”, Albanese said.
Under the new Trump administration measures, imports from Australia, along with 37 other nations, are subject to a tariff of 12.5%. Seventeen nations are subject to a 10% rate, while five nations are subject to a mixed rate.
Albanese, who has previously said his focus is on “free and fair trade” with the U.S., made tariffs a key issue in a call in with Trump after the centre-left government was returned in a landslide election win last year.
(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Kim Coghill)
