Australian Prime Minister Albanese to press Trump on new tariffs

Richard Henderson, Bloomberg News on Jul 25, 2026

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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he will appeal directly to President Donald Trump over new tariffs announced by Washington, describing the levies as unjustified.

Albanese said he would “absolutely” raise the topic with Trump, when asked during an interview on ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday. The Trump administration announced the new 12.5% levy last week following what it described as an investigation into alleged failures of around 60 economies to prevent forced labor in supply chains that impact American workers.

Australia has already begun to engage with the U.S. over the topic and will “raise it at every level of the Australia-U.S. relationship,” Albanese said in a pre-recorded interview in Adelaide on Saturday where his Labor Party’s annual conference was held.

“These are unjustified. We have very strong provisions on modern slavery,” he said. “Tariffs are a penalty on consumers in the country that imposes them. This will lead to higher costs in the United States and undermine the trading relationship that we have with our U.S. friends.”

The prime minister also called for an end to the Iran war, which has led to higher energy prices and questions over fuel supply in Australia. The government will make an announcement on fuel in the coming days or weeks, Albanese said, without providing further details.

“We have said consistently we want to see a deescalation, we want to see an end to the conflict,” he said. “We want to see the Strait of Hormuz opened without fees going through because that would undermine international trade.”