Sydney-Saba:
Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell announced on Sunday that his country hopes to diversify its trade partnerships with other countries to reduce its dependence on the United States, criticizing what he considered "unjustified" US tariffs.
Farrell told Sky News, "I hope that countries that believe in free and fair trade will agree to expand free trade agreements across the world, so that we have a greater diversity of trading partners regardless of what the Americans choose to do."
The United States imposed a 10 percent basic tariff on all imports from Australia earlier this year. It also recently imposed 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, both of which Australia is a major producer.
Farrell noted that he informed his US counterpart, Jamison Greer, last week of his protest against these exorbitant tariffs.
"The position I presented to Jameson Greer is that the tariffs imposed by the United States on Australia are unjustified," he said.
He added, "We want to remove all tariffs, not just some."
Trade between the two countries is estimated at 100 billion Australian dollars (about 57 billion euros) annually. The Australian minister stated that the trade balance is tilted more in Washington's favor.
After his reappointment to his post in early May, left-wing Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that he had a "very friendly" conversation with Donald Trump.
However, he achieved a partial victory in the legislative elections due to Australian voters' cautious attitude toward the US president.
In addition to its trade partnership with the United States, Australia has doubts about the AUKUS military agreement it concluded in 2021 with Washington and London with the stated goal of containing Chinese influence in the Pacific region.
Canberra and the European Union reached a rapprochement last May to establish a new defense partnership, as Europe seeks to formulate a unified response to the war in Ukraine and other global crises.
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