Australia politics live: Albanese faces stiff test in US trade talks; Victoria brings tougher bail laws to parliament
Date: 2025-07-28T20:33:00.000Z
Title: EU deal means Australia unlikely to secure US tariff exemption, experts say
Content: Australia's hopes for a total tariff exemption are dwindling as Donald Trump's deals with other nations lay bare the limits of trade negotiations, Australian Associated Press reports.
Since pushing his tariff deadline to 1 August, the US president has struck trade agreements with Japan, and overnight, the European Union – much to the disgust of French ministers who think the EU has caved in to Trump.
While the deals landed on tariffs lower than Mr Trump's initial threats, both were higher than the 10% baseline levy imposed on Australian goods.
No US trading partner has managed to completely dodge tariffs on their items.
So it seems unlikely that Anthony Albanese and his trade minister, Don Farrell, can negotiate their way out of any tariffs at all.
'Trump really does see tariffs as something that is good in themselves,' University of Sydney US politics expert David Smith told AAP.
'Even though there were a lot of hopes at the beginning of this process that countries could negotiate their way out of tariffs altogether – that's not really happening.'
Australia, like other nations, might instead have to pivot approaches and try to strategically position its industries within these deals.
Update:
Date: 2025-07-28T20:26:52.000Z
Title: Welcome
Content: Good morning and welcome to our live politics blog. I'm Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it'll be Krishani Dhanji with the main action.
Anthony Albanese could find it hard to negotiate a tariff-free trade deal with the US after the European Union became the latest American trading partner to settle for higher tariffs on exports to the world's biggest market. One expert warns today that it's looking increasingly unlikely that Labor will cut a tariff-free deal. More coming up.
Four banks will refund charges to low-income customers after the financial regulator found that a much higher number of Australians were paying too much than originally thought. More on that shortly.
And Labor is going to introduce new bail laws to the Victorian parliament which it says are the 'toughest' in the country, despite opposition from legal, First Nations and human rights groups. More on that too, in a few minutes.
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