Bob Katter Says Excuse My Political Incorrectness But Trump’s Tariffs Are An Excellent Example Of Why We Need To Keep A Couple Different Logs In The Fire When It Comes To Foreign Trade Because This News Could Be Catastrophic For Our Exporters If We Hadn’t Made Good With The Chinaman Over The Last Couple Years I Mean Look Back To 2022 When Those Mouth-Breathers Running The Show In Canberra Were Hoping To Win Another Term Of Government By Pitching Themselves As The Strong Pair Of Hands We Needed Win A War Against A Global Superpower Of 1.4 Billion People It Was Truly Desperate Stuff And Our Asian Neighbours Responded To These Provocations With The Type Of Tariffs That’d Turn A Grain Grower Into A Labor Voter I Mean Deadset Was That Seriously All The Liberals Had In The Toolbelt? A Khaki Election Aimed At Manipulating Voters With Claims Of A Fictional War Against A Trade Partner That Only Knows We Exist Because They’ve Suddenly Developed A Penchant For Barossa Valley Shiraz? Well They Certainly Knew Who Were Were After That Clown From Cronulla Decided To Start Publicly Demanding An Inquiry Into Whether They Intentionally Created That Virus As Some Sort Of Biochemical Attack On His TV Star Friend In The White House And Then Started Banging The Drums Of War By Spending 20% Of National GDP To Buy 7 Nuclear Submarines That Would Probably Last About 13 Minutes Against The Technological Might Of The Chinese Defence Force With Their 2 Million Active Duty Personnel Look I’m Not One Of Those Creepy Whitefellas Who Obsesses Over Asian Culture And In Fact I Do Have Some Concerns About The Way These Supposed Communists Go About Things But Imagine If We Hadn’t Been Able To Peel Those Trade Sanctions Back And We Were Relying One Hundred Percent On This Fair-weather Friendship With A New York Property Developer That My Friends Is What You Call Painting Yourself Into A Corner Which Is What You Should Never Do When It Comes To Agriculture We Just Need To Look Back To The Wool Crash That Kicked Off When Our Government Couldn’t Decide If They Wanted To Be Better Friends With England Or America After World War 2 Well What Ended Up Happening Was That A Paralysis Of Action Led To A Lack Of Diversity In Trade Options Which Led To A Gaping Hole In Our Export Market For One Of Our Most Prominent Primary Industries And We Were Left With No Option But To Start Buying Our Own Wool Through A Reserve Price Scheme That Left Us With A Stockpile That We Couldn’t Offload For Two Decades After Prices Hit A Record Low Of 465 Cents Per Kilogram In 1998 That My Friends Was The Straw That Broke The Sheep’s Back And The Bush Has Never Recovered Now Of Course The Neoliberals Will Still Blame That Whole Thing On The Shearers Unions Demanding Another 5 Cents Per Animal And I Have No Doubt Now That Our Abattoirs And Meatworkers Will Shoulder The Brunt Of The Blame For America’s Knee-Jerk Decision Overnight But At The End Of The Day We Are Lucky We’ve Got China There To Absorb The Gap In Our Beef Export Market And In A Worst Case Scenario We Have Those Arab Nations On The Bench Because You’ve Got To Remember That The Indians Worship Cows And Don’t Very Much Like The Idea Of Them Being Turned Into Hamburgers That’s Why They Their Version Of The Big Mac Is Actually Called A Big Maharaja Which Has Been Altered To Include Chicken Patties Instead But Yes We Can Take Solace In The Fact That Our Oriental Friends In The North Pacific Are Currently Onside, Maybe It’s Because We Make An Effort To Join In On Their New Years Celebrations Down In Chinatown Every February Maybe It’s Because Our Universities Make An Effort To Educate All Of The Crazy Rich Asians Of Beijing But Mind You I Think It’s Most Probably Because We Have A Foreign Minister With The Last Name Of Wong Just Quietly But Ya Probably Can’t Say That

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

After months of frantic attempts by the Australian Government to secure exemptions, it seems that United States President Donald Trump has stuck to his word and announced a new round of trade tariffs, setting a baseline on all trading nations including 10 per cent on Australian goods including beef.

Prime Minister Albanese has addressed the nation this morning, and vowed to not let Australia enter a “race to the bottom” by retaliating with its own tariffs.

He has also reiterated that he would not weaken Australia’s biosecurity laws – or give in to demands to raise the prices of Australian medicines at the request of the America’s pharmaceutical giants – in an effort to escape today’s tariffs.

While a lot will be said about Trump’s announcements over the next month of the Australian Election Campaign, and the Federal Opposition will argue that they could’ve prevented this from happening, it will be predominantly regional Australians that feel the pinch.

Maverick Independent MP for North Queensland, The Honourable Bob Katter III, has today offered a short statement of his own in regards to Trump’s tariffs.

SEE THE HEADLINE FOR HIS QUOTE.