Interview with Nadia Mitsopoulos, ABC Radio

Nadia Mitsopoulos: Well, yesterday the news came through that I think many of us were bracing for, hoping we could avoid that, is that the United States is going to go ahead with its tariffs on steel and aluminium and Australia will not be getting an exemption. Now, I was interested to see our Trade Minister, Don Farrell, say that he thought the Americans never intended to give anyone an exemption. And it just so happens that Don Farrell is in Fremantle today and I had a chat to him a little earlier this morning.

Trade Minister: Hi, good morning, Nadia. Nice to be down here in Fremantle.

Nadia Mitsopoulos: I imagine those US Tariffs are dominating your agenda, but it's not all bad news on the trade fund. What is happening with our Western rock lobster?

Trade Minister: Well, of course, Western rock lobster is one most beautiful lobsters in the world. And of course, for about four years we were locked out of the Chinese market. Just before Christmas, the Chinese reopened the market to Western rock lobster. And we've already seen in the first month over $118 million worth of new trade going back into China for rock lobster. This is a record amount of crayfish. We've never ever, even in the old days, we never, ever sold that much crayfish into China. And of course, the biggest beneficiary of that total value of sales is Western Australia. Western Australia was the hardest hit of all of the states with these trade impediments with China. Now they're the biggest beneficiaries.

Nadia Mitsopoulos: So, the demand from China is now bigger than what it was before the ban.

Trade Minister: That's exactly. Yeah, that's exactly right, Nadia. And we've seen that with all of the products that we've now got back into China. Barley was another product that was affected by the Chinese impediments. We're now selling more of the beautiful Western Australian barley back into China. And it doesn't matter which product that you picked if you remember, there was $20 billion worth of trade impediments imposed by the Chinese. All of those have now been removed. And in every single case, we're now selling more of those products into the Chinese market. Why is that? Well, because we've got such good quality products, whether it's wine, Western Australian wine or Western Australian food.

Nadia Mitsopoulos: Minister, are we now in a position where China is a more reliable trade partner than the United States?

Trade Minister: China for some time now has been our largest trading partner. Partner. If I can do the comparison, last year our trade with China was $327 billion. Trade with the United States was $100 billion. The value of that trade for China, for Australia was $230 million. So, we sold $230 billion worth of our product into China. We only bought $100 billion worth of their product. So, that was a net profit to Australia of $130 billion. Compare that with the United States total trade, $100 billion. We only sold $30 billion into the United States. We bought $70 billion worth of American products. So, the Chinese economy for us is much, much bigger and much, much stronger than the United States economy.

Nadia Mitsopoulos: My guest this morning is Don Farrell, the Trade Minister. If we talk about those U.S. tariffs, you said yesterday that you did not think the Americans ever intended to offer anyone an exemption. What gave you that impression?

Trade Minister: Look, looking back on what's happened over the last month, we got an initial indication from the Prime Minister' with President Trump that they would give it some consideration. But go back one step before that. Even before that meeting, President Trump said he was going to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium and there would be no exemptions. And that's what's happened. No country, no country has got an exemption from these tariffs. And I think, I honestly think that that was the view of the people advising the President right from the start.

Nadia Mitsopoulos: And so any hope that there may be an exemption in the future is not possible?

Trade Minister: No, no, I don't say that, Nadia. When I came to the job three years ago, people said, you'll never, ever get that trade back with China. It was $20 billion worth of trade that we lost. But we did give up and we kept trying. And as I've just explained, crayfish was the last of the products to get back into China. We, all of those, all of those tariffs have been removed. We're not a government that gives up, Nadia. We know how important trade is to a country like Australia. If you're an outward facing company, your profits are higher if you trade overseas. More importantly, the wages of your staff are higher. So, we see trade as being really valuable. I'm going to continue talking with our American colleagues because this is a crazy policy. This doesn't help anybody. It makes our product more expensive in the United States, but it pushes up the cost for American consumers. This is not a sensible economic policy. My job will be in the days and the weeks and the months ahead to convince the Americans that they've gone down the wrong path. This is not the way for economic prosperity. The economic prosperity is all about free trade, free trade between countries. And, you know, we're not just focused on the United States. I've talked about China. Two days ago, I was talking with our Korean counterparts. We intend to diversify our trade so that we're not reliant on one single company. The Koreans want to do the same thing. We're having talks with them. We're going to talk with the Japanese Trade Minister about the same thing. In the last couple of years, we've got new free trade agreements with the United Kingdom. Our trade with the United Kingdom, Nadia, has now doubled in that period of time. We've got a new trade agreement with India. Agricultural sales to India are up 168%. We've just done a deal with the United Arab Emirates. This is really good for Western Australia. You produce such beautiful food and wine. We're going to be able to send that tariff free, completely tariff free, into the United Arab Emirates. So, okay, we're going to try and convince the Americans that they're going down the wrong path. But at the same time, we're building new trade relationships right around the world that will more than compensate for what's happening with the United States right now.

Nadia Mitsopoulos: Ok. And Peter Dutton has criticised the Prime Minister for not getting personally involved. Why did he not get involved?

Trade Minister: Look, it doesn't matter whether you were Prime Minister Starmer, President Macron, the Japanese Prime Minister, the Korean leaders, no country, no country managed to get an exemption. And didn't matter whether you were sending your Prime Minister, your Trade Minister, your ambassador, nobody. And this gets back to my original point, Nadia. Nobody got an exemption. And I don't think anybody was ever going to get an exemption.

Nadia Mitsopoulos: I'm speaking with Don Farrell, the Federal Trade Minister, this morning on 720, ABC Radio Perth and WA. Penny Wong also hinted that we used our critical minerals as a bargaining chip. She said, of course, we looked at all those things the Trump administration had indicated were of value. Did that happen, Minister?

Trade Minister: Look, I don't want to specifically go into the negotiating position, because we continue to negotiate with the Americans. On the 1st of April, they're going to make a decision about all of the other exports that we make to the United States. But I can say that critical minerals are of course one thing that particularly Western Australia has to offer the Americans. And if they are serious about negotiating a deal that gives us tariff free, then I'm certain critical minerals will be part of that discussion.

Nadia Mitsopoulos: Ok. I notice two other countries are retaliating with tariffs of their own on United States products. Will Australia do that?

Trade Minister: That's tempting, but I think it's counterproductive. We are a free trading country. We want other countries to treat us the same way that we treat them. I think the best way forward is to do what we did with China. When, for instance, China imposed 220% tariffs on Australian wine. We didn't retaliate with tariffs on iron ore or coal or other products. We sat down calmly and tried to negotiate away those tariffs. And I think that is the best policy to adopt right now. I think we can do it. We've got a track record of getting rid of these tariffs that other countries unfairly impose upon us. And certainly from my point of view, that's what I'd like to try and do. I think persistence, quiet negotiations, not public negotiations, quiet behind the scenes negotiations is the way to go. And I hope that the arguments that we make to the Americans finally get accepted and they understand that in fact tariffs are actually counterproductive to both of our economies.

Nadia Mitsopoulos: Finally, Minister, the broader picture here, I guess is one of great global instability. The stock market has taken a real beating. We know that this is very much the Donald Trump style. And this is what it's going to be like for the next four years if your government does get back in again. How are you going to manage this?

Trade Minister: Well, in the same way we managed it with the Chinese Nadia. Cool, calm and collected. Don't start hyperventilating. And look, I was disappointed in Mr. Dutton yesterday. He seemed to get a lot of glee out of the fact that we hadn't secured tariff free into the United States. I don't think that's helpful. I don't think that's a good message to send to Australian producers or Australian workers who will be affected by these tariffs. There's no doubt about that. I think we should adopt a team Australia approach. It's going to be tough. It's going to be very tough. And every day you wake up and there's a new issue to deal with. But we've proved over the last three years that sensible, stable discussions in the end result in the right outcome. And that's what I'd like to do right now.

Nadia Mitsopoulos: And that was the federal Trade Minister, Don Farrell.