Australia’s new ambassador in Washington says he will “robustly” push back on the Trump administration’s “extremely disappointing” new tariff proposal and may recruit Australian businesses to help take up the fight.
Greg Moriarty also conceded the US’s military shipbuilding program was “not where they want it to be”, but he had been reassured by strong bipartisan support for the AUKUS plan to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
In an interview with the ABC to mark the start of his posting, Mr Moriarty said he had been “warmly” welcomed to Washington by US President Donald Trump, who told him he liked Australia and “spoke very positively about the relationship and the agenda that we had together”.
“He spoke positively about his friendship with Prime Minister Albanese, but … I could see that he was warm in his feelings towards Australia, very keen for us to continue to work together.”
Mr Moriarty, who has replaced Kevin Rudd in the critical posting, said Australia was working on a submission to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which flagged the new tariff on Australian imports after a recent investigation into forced labour.
The investigation was widely seen as a mechanism to replace tariffs that were previously struck down in court.
It led to proposed tariffs of between 10 and 12.5 per cent for almost all of the US’s major trading partners.
Australia is among the countries whose imports are set to be levied with the largest tariff, though it still needs to go through a consultation process.
“We’re going to engage robustly and respectfully with the process, and I’m talking to Australian business about how we can work together to make Australia’s case against such a measure,”
Mr Moriarty said.
Asked if he would fight for an outright exemption, he said: “We’re working through all of the complexities of the arrangements. We still don’t understand what exemptions might already apply, as there are some exemptions under the previous tariff regime.”
Mr Moriarty said he was already in talks with members of the administration, and the US defence industry, about the AUKUS plan to provide Australia with American nuclear-powered submarines.
Controversy around the plan was recently reignited by confirmation all the boats would be part-way through their life-span before Australia received them.
Greg Moriarty has held a range of government roles and most recently led the Department of Defence. (Supplied: CPL Sebastian Beurich)
But the bigger challenge is the pace of building the boats in the US.
A series of reports has shown it is lagging well behind the targets required to replenish the American fleet — a pre-requisite before providing submarines to Australia.
Australia is providing more than $4 billion to the US industrial base to help increase the pace of production.
“I’m engaging with the administration and the Pentagon on how Australia’s money will contribute to that uplift in the submarine industrial base,” Mr Moriarty said.
“And the United States has been very confident that their boat production rate is growing.
“There were two boats produced last year, and there will be two boats produced this year. It’s not where they want it to be and they are very determined to grow that.”
