‘Boomerang': Tariff threat after new deadline
Donald Trump announced his 'reciprocal tariffs' on April 2 but paused them for 90 days to give countries time to negotiate deals with Washington.
Australia was not slapped with those duties but was instead subjected to the universal 10 per cent imposts on all foreign imports – a position Anthony Albanese has said he did not expect to change.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said overnight that countries set to be slugged with steeper tariffs would receive letters indicating their new rates if they failed to secure deals before the new deadline.
'President Trump is going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners saying that, if you don't move things along, then on August 1st, you will boomerang back to your April 2nd tariff level,' Mr Bessent told CNN.
'So, I think we're going to see a lot of deals very quickly.'
He said the US President would 'send out probably 100 letters to small countries where we don't have very much trade and most of those are already at the baseline 10 per cent'.
Mr Bessent also denied August 1 was a new deadline, despite the Trump administration characterising July 9 as a final cut-off.
'It's not a new deadline,' he said.
'We are saying, this is when it's happening.
'If you want to speed things up, have at it. If you want to go back to the old rate that's your choice.' Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he does not expect Australia's tariff rate to change. / Martin Ollman / NewsWire Credit: News Corp Australia
He said the 'playbook is to apply maximum pressure'.
'We saw three weeks ago that the EU was very slow in coming to the table,' Mr Bessent said.
'Three weeks ago, on Friday morning, President Trump threatened 50 per cent tariffs, and, within a few hours, five of the European national leaders had called him and Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU, was on the phone, and the EU is making very good progress.
'They were off to a slow start.'
Earlier in the initial 90-day pause, the Trump administration told the Albanese government it would not receive a letter hitting Australia with a steeper rate.
Aside from the baseline 10 per cent tariffs, Australia is subjected to levies of up to 50 per cent on steel and aluminium.
So far, only the UK and the Vietnam have negotiated deals with the US.
But neither country has had tariffs removed entirely.
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