New trade opportunities are emerging for some Australian agricultural industries, following US President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging tariff announcement on Thursday.
Australian exports to the US will be subject to a 10 per cent tariff, as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping changes to US trade policy.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed to use “dispute resolution” powers if necessary, while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton suggested he would be willing to use defence and security as bargaining chips in negotiations.
Australian products have avoided the much higher “reciprocal tariffs” applied to the US’s major trading partners.
As a result, some Australian agricultural markets are celebrating an unexpected silver lining from the Trump tariff announcements.
The enemy of my friend
Almond Board of Australia chief executive Tim Jackson said the US was not a market for Australian almonds.
“The US already produces 80 per cent of the world’s almonds,” he said.
Tim Jackson says the almond industry has seen recent growth fuelled by sales to China. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
However, Australia’s almond export to China has burgeoned since President Trump’s first stint in power.
“Since the first lot of tariffs under the [first] Trump administration went in, we went from being 0.77 per cent of Chinese almond imports to nearly 70 per cent this year,” Mr Jackson said.
The USA’s decision to impose new levies on imports from China was met with reciprocal tariffs, with Californian almonds growers now facing an extra 10 per cent in taxes, bringing total tariffs to 35 per cent.
“Given the fact we’ve got a free trade agreement with China, and we’ve got a 50 per cent reduction in tariffs with India, we’re a preferred market,” Mr Jackson said.
Mr Jackson said the Chinese market had been the source of the majority of grower revenue for the last few years.
“Not only have we been able to sell an enormous amount into China, it’s been a premium price because it’s still below the tariff price of the Californian product,”
he said.
“We certainly sympathise with wine and the like … but there’s certainly been an upswing in interest in Australian almonds from anywhere that had a retaliatory tariff placed on Californian almonds.”
Take the opportunities presented
Fruit Growers Victoria’s industry development officer Michael Cisera said there could be opportunities for Australian fruit to find space in markets it otherwise would not have access to.
Michael Cisera says there could be opportunities in overseas markets created by reciprocal tariffs. (ABC Rural: Annie Brown)
“There is potentially going to be some opportunities for countries to want Australian fruit if there’s no tariff attached to it,” he said.
“We don’t export apples much at all, and this is an opportunity — where there are reciprocal tariffs on US apples, we may be able to come in with some Australian apples.
“For stone fruit, the biggest export market is China, and for cherries that’s the case as well.”
Mr Cisera says Australian stone fruit rarely makes the journey to the US. (ABC Rural: Justine Longmore)
Mr Cisera remained pragmatic about the situation, even if there were positives to be found.
“I wouldn’t say it is good news, we think about everyone in the industry which may be impacted, but with us we can consider our options and make sure we don’t have all our eggs in one basket, ” he said.
“In this trade war, or whatever is happening, we need to watch the different tariffs around the world and if there is opportunity, we take it.“
Fortunate trade agreement carve-outs
Andrew Whitelaw, co-founder of agricultural market analysis business Episode3, said large tariffs applied to Canadian canola initially caused some worry for Australian growers.
Andrew Whitelaw says Australia has dodged a bullet for the most part. (ABC News)
“The concern was with such a large tariff it would be unviable, and go to a different market and begin competing with Australian canola,” the market analyst said.
“But it seems, and things can change very quickly, [and] Trump has exempted certain products from Canada and Mexico.
Canola growers were initially concerned about Trump’s tariffs. (ABC Rural: Luke Radford)
“Now we don’t need to worry about a couple million tons of canola hitting the [global] market and competing with us.
“It’ll just go straight to the US, which we weren’t to trade into anyway.”
