Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's hopes of securing an exemption from Donald Trump's incoming metals tariffs have been dealt a blow, with a senior presidential adviser accusing Australia of "killing the aluminium market".
The US president on Monday signed executive orders which will see 25 per cent taxes placed on imports of steel and aluminium to the United States from March 12.
As he put pen to paper, Mr Trump declared there would be "no exceptions and no exemptions" from his tariffs, but later clarified he was giving "great consideration" as to whether they should apply to Australia.
Last year, Australia exported 223,000 tonnes of steel to the US, and 83,000 tonnes of aluminium.
Mr Trump's senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro, on Tuesday rebuked the idea of an Australian exemption.
"Australia is just killing our aluminium market," he told CNN. "President Trump says no, no, we're not, we're not doing that anymore."
The proclamation to impose the tariff, released after Mr Trump signed the executive order, accused Australia of going back on a "verbal commitment to voluntarily restrain its aluminium exports at a reasonable level".
"The volume of US imports of primary aluminium from Australia has also surged and in 2024 was approximately 103 per cent higher than the average volume for 2015 through 2017," the proclamation read.
Those maths are based on US dollars.
In terms of metric tonnes, the amount of aluminium Australia has exported to the US over the past decade has fluctuated from a low of 22,500 in 2016, to a high of 268,000 in 2019.
The new tariffs will affect some of America's closest allies.
Canada is the top exporter of both metals to the US, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the new taxes as "unjustified" and warned his country would retaliate.
According to figures from the US Department of Commerce, Australia ranked 17th for exports of steel and eighth in exports of aluminium to the country over the past 10 years.
"What they do is they just flood our markets," Mr Navarro said of Australia's aluminium exports to the US.
"After Biden let them, gave them an agreement that said, 'Don't flood our markets. You could have a reasonable amount.'
"That's what we're dealing with. Our aluminium industry is on its back."
Mr Albanese and Mr Trump discussed the new tariffs and a possible exemption for Australia during a phone call earlier this week, although no timeframe was given for a decision.
Paul Myler, a formerly deputy head of mission at Australia's embassy in Washington DC told the ABC Mr Navarro would not be the person who decides to grant exemptions.
"I think Trump likes seeing him out on cable TV, giving people bloody noses," Mr Myler said.
"And, I think he likes having him in the room in the internal White House discussions, putting a view that the rest of the people there are probably going to argue against."
Mr Myler argued Australia was in a good position to seek an exemption, and questioned Mr Navarro's claim that aluminium imports from Down Under had "killed the industry".
"If Australia can destroy the US aluminium industry, then they must really be on their knees, because we're not that big a player," he said.
