'Show about nothing': PM taunted over US tariffs
The prime minister has been compared the famous 1990s "show about nothing", amid dwindling hopes Australia can secure a total tariff exemption.
US President Donald Trump's deals with other nations have laid bare the limits of trade negotiations, with no countries receiving a better deal than Australia's 10 per cent baseline tariff.
And now Australian exporters could see the impost set on goods sent to the US doubled, after Mr Trump delivered an ominous warning on Tuesday.
He implied the base rate, which applies to the goods of many countries including Australia, could rise to 15-20 per cent.
Mr Trump said his administration would soon notify about 200 countries of their new "world tariff" rate.
"I would say it'll be somewhere in the 15-to-20 per cent range," he said. "Probably one of those two numbers."
Senior Labor government minister Clare O'Neil said Australia was continuing to argue to the US that it deserves beneficial treatment, given the two countries' long running alliance.
"We want to get the best deal for our citizens - that's what our government is working towards every day," she told Seven's Sunrise program on Wednesday.
But opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the government's approach had been a failure so far, given Mr Albanese was yet to secure a face-to-face meeting with Mr Trump.
"The prime minister of Australia, Mr Albanese, is becoming the Seinfeld prime minister - he's a show about nothing," she told Seven.
"Other countries ... they are successfully negotiating trade deals that benefit their countries.
"We now hear it could go 15 per cent, it could go 20 per cent.
"I just remind the Australian people that when the coalition was last in government, we successfully negotiated a zero per cent tariff."
Senator Cash was referencing the Seinfeld episode The Pitch, when characters Jerry and George pitched an idea for a "show about nothing" to TV executives - recreating how creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David came up with the show's concept.
During Mr Trump's first stint in office, Australia under former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and several other countries secured tariff exemptions from the White House.
No countries have secured total exemptions this time.
The government resolved one of Mr Trump's grievances with Australia last week by lifting an effective ban on US beef imports.
Canada on Wednesday morning, AEST, announced Australia also reopened market access for Canadian beef, ending a 22-year-old ban imposed following the discovery of mad cow disease.
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