Where’s Kevin Rudd? Australia’s ambassador silent about Trump’s tariffs on Australian steel –  prompting many to ask the same question

Australia’s ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd has kept publicly silent after President Donald Trump announced a 25 per cent tax on all steel and aluminium imports to the US. 

Trump announced the tariffs on imported metal would broadly apply without exemptions, during a media conference aboard Air Force One as he was flying to the Super Bowl in New Orleans.

‘Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25 per cent tariff,’ he told reporters on Monday morning.

The Albanese Government is under pressure to secure a tariff exemption, yet Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, has refrained from commenting on the matter.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that he has ‘scheduled’ a crisis phone call with Trump to address the steel and aluminium tariffs.

This has raised concerns about the current state of relations between Rudd and Trump, especially in light of Rudd’s past scathing criticism of the former president.

The tariff development sparked a wave of questions on social media, and calls for Rudd’s resignation.

‘Rudd should resign, should clear there and someone else fresh should come in,’ said Radio 3AW host Jacqui Felgate.

Rudd previously called Trump a ‘traitor to the West’, a ‘village idiot’ and described him as the ‘most destructive president in history’. 

In turn, Trump had dismissed Rudd as ‘nasty’ and suggested he wouldn’t last long in the role if he were to return to the White House. 

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Trump met with Rudd after being elected, though details of the meeting remain scarce. 

‘Kevin Rudd has been very active developing relationships with the new administration, and I am very confident Australia is showing the importance we place in the United States relationship by having a former prime minister as our ambassador,’ Mr Albanese said at the time.

The Australian share market’s benchmark S&P/ASX200 was 0.5 per cent weaker causing an estimated $15billion loss following Trump’s tariff announcement.

A tariff on Australian goods would be a ‘slap in the face’ for domestic industry and the US-Australian alliance, Australia Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said.

‘It is now up to the federal government to quickly step in and protect Australian industry and producers from being caught up in a rapidly escalating global trade war,’ he said.

‘Reversing these tariffs must be a national priority and the government must use all the leverage at its disposal to quickly turn this around.’

In 2018, Australia was granted an exemption from 25 per cent American tariffs on steel and 10 per cent import taxes on aluminum after then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull pointed out the US had trade surpluses with Australia – where Aussies bought more goods and services from Americans than they bought from us.

Canada, Mexico, the European Union and the UK were also given exemptions on steel and aluminium tariffs.  

But this time, President Trump has imposed tariffs more broadly, even though the Albanese Government made the same point about the American trade surpluses with Australia that have stretched back to 1952.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said urgent talks were needed, contrasting Labor’s fruitless approach with the former Coalition government’s ability to send then ambassador Joe Hockey to negotiate exemptions with the US seven years ago.

‘We were able to send Joe Hockey there, to be able to put a cogent argument about carving Australia out,’ he told Sky News on Monday.

Mr Littleproud said Australia’s current Ambassdor to Washington, former prime minister Kevin Rudd, was proving to be a liability. 

‘Unfortunately, we’ve got an ambassador there that’s made disparaging comments about the President. And we’ve got a Prime Minister that’s made disparaging comments about the President,’ he said. 

Opposition trade spokesman Kevin Hogan agreed, saying it was time critical for the government to ensure Australian industry receives an exemption from the tariffs.

‘A critical component was a strong ambassador – we had Ambassador Hockey who helped Australia to successfully negotiate exemptions from United States steel and aluminium tariffs,’ he said.

‘The Ambassador to the US is one of the most critical diplomatic roles Australia has. Albanese hand-picked Kevin Rudd for this position. Albanese and Rudd have a big job to do here.’

President Trump’s announcement was made a day after Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles met with American Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

‘That this advice has been given the day after our Deputy Prime Minister was in Washington to hand over billions of dollars to secure the AUKUS submarine deal is particularly troubling,’ Mr Willox said. 

CommSec chief economist Ryan Felsman said Australian consumers were likely to end up paying more for imports as the American tariffs weakened the Australian dollar, now worth 62 US cents.

‘You’ve got those underlying cost increases which potentially affect consumers,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.

Pepperstone head of research Chris Weston said Australia’s exposure to the US market was not huge, so the effect of the tariffs would be relatively manageable in the grand scheme of things. 

Australian exports of iron and steel to the US valued $US237.5 million in 2023 while aluminium exports valued $US316.9, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database. 

For some Australian metals producers, like BlueScope Steel, the tariffs could even be beneficial.

‘If you’re a direct producer of steel and you’re selling to the US market, obviously you’re going to take a hit from this,’ Mr Weston said.

‘But if you’re buying steel in the market and using steel for your final products, there could be a short-term negative hit to the steel price that could benefit your business.’

BlueScope shares climbed by more than two per cent in Monday morning trading on the ASX, with the Australian company also manufacturing steel in the United States.

‘BlueScope is fairly well insulated from the tariffs,’ Mr Felsman said. 

In a statement, BlueScope said it would work with the Trump Administration and the Australian government, noting the company has invested heavily in the US, boosting American employment.

Economist Chris Richardson said the key implication of the tariffs for the Reserve Bank of Australia and its decision whether to lower interest rates for the first time in five years was whether they would have a bigger impact on inflation or economic growth.

‘I’ve been in the camp that says, for Oz, Trump is more of a growth worry than an ongoing inflation worry,’ he said in a post on X.

‘But both sides of the ledger keep getting bigger.’

Trump’s announcement could potentially affect steel workers at Port Kembla, near Wollongong, and Whyalla, in South Australia, along with aluminium manufacturers in Newcastle north of Sydney.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers was last week hopeful Trump would continue to exempt Australia from his wide-ranging tariffs.

‘We are confident that we can navigate these changes coming out of DC. We are well placed, we are well prepared,’ he told ABC News Breakfast on February 4.

‘The Americans run a trade surplus with us, they have done since the Truman Administration I think in 1952, a substantial trade surplus. 

‘Our relationship is mutually beneficial, and all of the conversations that we’ll have with our American counterparts will be about making sure that this really key economic relationship continues to be beneficial to both sides.’

In 2023, the United States had a $US17.7billion goods trade surplus with Australia, which would be worth $A27.2billion at today’s exchange rate. 

The United States is Australia’s third biggest two-way trading trading partner, but only the fifth biggest export market behind China, Japan, South Korea and India, who are bigger buyers of Australian iron ore and coal.

While Trump had campaigned to reintroduce hefty tariff barriers in 2024, he had also given hints since coming to office that tariffs could be used as a negotiating tactic on border policy, in a bid to force Canada and Mexico to stem the flow across its border of illegal immigrants and drugs like Chinese-made Fentanyl. 

During his first term in the White House, he repeatedly expressed concerns about American trading partners that sold more goods to the US than it bought from them. 

The Trump Administration’s wider-ranging tariffs in 2025 are set to mark the most punitive import restrictions since the 1930 Smoot Hawley Tariff Act.

China imposed heavier tariffs on Australia during the pandemic despite having a free-trade deal with Australia since 2015, after then prime minister Scott Morrison called for an inquiry into the origins of Covid.