A senior member of Donald Trump‘s cabinet has blasted Australia’s biosecurity rules citing them as a major factor in the US slapping 10 per cent tariffs on Australia.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Australia’s quarantining system was effectively a barrier to American beef exporters.
‘Our farmers are blocked from selling almost anywhere – 1.4billion people in India and we can’t sell them corn; Europe won’t let us sell beef; Australia won’t let us sell beef,’ he told CNN.
Australia, like the US, has biosecurity rules to keep out disease.
But Mr Lutnick, a banking billionaire who advises Trump on trade policy, argued these rules amounted to protectionism, and now the US is responding in kind.
‘They want to just protect, they want to say, “Oh, what, the seeds are different”,’ he said.
‘C’mon, this is nonsense; this is all nonsense. What happens is they block our markets – when we opened those markets, our volumes grow, our farmers will thrive and the price of groceries will come down.’
Beef, Australia’s biggest export to the United States in 2024, will now incur a 10 per cent tariff despite a reliance by many American food companies on the product to complement its own meat which is short supply.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Australia’s quarantining system amounted to a barrier to American beef exporters
The US is battling a drought, which has diminished cattle herds and restricted beef production to the fattier, grain-fed variety.
Australia’s leaner, grass-fed beef is needed to make hamburger mince; a staple of the American diet.
That kind of meat making up 96 per cent of Australia’s exports to the US last year.
Imposing a tariff on Australian beef exports would be more likely to push up food prices in the United States rather than bolster local production if conditions do not allow it.
South American beef producing nations Argentina, Brazil and Chile, who are also battling a drought, have been hit with a 10 per cent tariff, like Australia.
Australia has had a free-trade deal with the US since 2005 but the Trump Administration argued measures like biosecurity, a Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and even the Goods and Services Tax are the equivalent of ‘tariffs charged to the US’.
The 10 per cent ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on Australia was based on addressing a perceived trade imbalance, despite the US having annual trade surpluses with Australia stretching back to 1952.
Australian exports to the US, like beef and gold, had spiked in early 2025, as American importers rushed to get in ahead of the Trump tariffs.
Beef, Australia’s biggest export to the United States in 2024, now incurs a 10 per cent tariff, even though the Americans had been importing a product they had struggled to produce themselves (pictured is a herd in south-west Victoria)
President Trump cited the US buying $US3billion worth of Australian beef in year as Australian quarantining rules made it hard for American exporters
Meat was Australia’s biggest export to the US last year, with beef making up almost $5billion of the $6billion in protein sent there, along with lamb and goat.
President Trump cited the US buying $US3billion worth of Australian beef in year as Australian quarantining rules made it hard for American exporters.
‘Australia bans – and they’re wonderful people, and wonderful everything – but they ban American beef,’ he said, announcing ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs at the White House.
‘Yet we imported 3billion dollars of Australian beef from them just last year alone.
‘They won’t take any of our beef.
‘They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers – and I don’t blame them – but we’re doing the same thing right now.’
Australia had an overall trade surplus of $2.968billion in February, which was the weakest since the pandemic in 2020 based on the difference between the value of exports and imports.
Australian exports to the US had briefly overtaken those sent to China in early 2025, ahead of the US tariffs, but exports to both trading partners have now fallen sharply since January.
Westpac senior economist Mantas Vanagas said Australian export trade was likely to slow in 2025, as a result of the American tariffs.
‘Against the backdrop of very significant shifts in global trade policy, risks to the trade balance are skewed towards a further deterioration,’ he said.
The latest 10 per cent tariffs on Australian exports to the US follow 25 per cent tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium that came into effect on March 12.
American research firm Evercore estimates average US tariffs are now at 29 per cent, which is higher than the 20 per cent level of 1930, following the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act during the Great Depression.
