With friends like these, who needs enemies?

When US President Donald Trump slapped tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium last month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the decision was “ against the spirit of our two nations’ enduring friendship ”. This week, when the president upended economic order by implementing sweeping global tariffs of between 10 and 50 per cent on all goods, Albanese hit a similar note, describing the 10 per cent whack on Australia as “ not the act of a friend ”. Donald Trump holds up his chart of “reciprocal tariffs” at the announcement event in Washington.

Credit: Getty Politicians like to talk up the special nature of the relationship between the US and Australia – often in fawning terms. But in light of Trump’s treatment of Australia and our economic security over recent weeks, let’s hope our elected representatives cool it on such talk for the next few years. Because with friends like these, who needs enemies? How many more chances do you give a friend who treats you badly? Twice now the prime minister has accused the United States of being a bad friend to Australia, but so far it’s hard to detect any material change in how our nation plans to respond to the damaging and destructive policies of an ally.



Trump has loomed large over global affairs for so long that many of us risk becoming desensitised to his rhetoric. I watch what Trump says perhaps more than most, but even I was surprised by the language he used in the Rose Garden of the White House this week as he sought to justify his new tariff regime. For decades, he said, the US has been “looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike”.

American steelworkers, car markets, farmers and craftsmen have suffered grave injustices, he said. Foreign leaders have “stolen our jobs”, he warned. Foreign “cheaters” have ransacked American factories and “scavengers” have torn apart the American dream.

The speech was full of Trump’s usual lies. The biggest was his description of the tariffs as reciprocal. “That means they do it to us and we do it to them.

Very simple,” Trump explained. “Can’t get any simpler than that.” But Australia does not charge a 10 per cent tariff on US imports.

As the Herald’s North America correspondent Michael Koziol explained , the so-called “reciprocal tariffs” look to be a hoax, with the rate applied to each country calculated using very blunt means. “For example, in 2024, the US trade deficit with China was $US295.4 billion ($469 billion).

US imports from China were $US438.9 billion. Dividing the deficit by the imports equals 67 per cent, which is the exact figure shown next to ‘tariffs charged to the USA’ on Trump’s chart,” Michael wrote.

“The figure has little to do with tariffs or non-tariff trade barriers. It’s simply a reflection of the US’s trade imbalance with that nation. Countries with which the US has a trade surplus, such as Australia, got hit with a ‘baseline’ rate of 10 per cent.

” One thing Trump did get right is a declaration that his so-called Liberation Day represented “one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history”. That’s certainly accurate, because there’s a good chance that in a year from now the tariff decision could be viewed as the catalyst for a US recession with global implications. It was also a momentous day because it served as another potent reminder that the United States of America is now an unreliable, unpredictable power with self-interest at the heart of its flawed decision-making.

What does this mean for Australia? Don’t bother asking our political leaders, because they would really rather not talk about it. As the Herald’s international and political editor Peter Hartcher observed this week , the great irony is that while the political leadership doesn’t want to speak openly to the public about Australia’s increasingly vulnerable position, the people are only too aware. “Six in 10 Australians believe that the advent of Trump is bad for Australia, according to the Resolve Political Monitor commissioned by the Herald ,” Peter noted.

“Asked to nominate the greatest threat to Australia, while China still is rated No.1 by 31 per cent of respondents, the US is named by 17 per cent. Russia runs a distant third at 4 per cent.

“Australians want to know what the contenders for the prime ministership will do to protect the national interest. Neither Albanese nor Dutton so far have any answers for them.” Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own.

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