IMPACTS on Australia from the imposition of US tariffs are likely to be felt indirectly, a conference in Victoria has heard.
Duncan Smith, the general manager for client relationships at investment consultancy Jana, said that aside from some key commodities such as beef, Australia was not a key trading partner with the United States.
American tariffs on Chinese goods, however, could contribute to lower growth in that country, a key Australian trading partner.
“We are not a big trade partner with the US. Tariffs are likely to be less [of an impact] than other parts of the world,” Mr Smith said.
“However, we are a trade partner with China and they may be needing less of our resources [if there is a tariff-driven downturn].”
Tariffs have been a significant point for discussion ever since the Trump administration assumed office in January.
Aluminium is one industry likely to be affected, albeit Australia is a relatively small exporter of aluminium and steel to the US.
Speaking at the Victorian Transport Association State Conference at San Remo, Mr Smith said people around the world were still struggling to price the impact of proposed tariffs, referring to “policy on the run” and key announcements seemingly made via social media.
He said geopolitics were likely to be a key influence on global markets for a number of years to come.
Looking at the Australian economy, Mr Smith said an increase in population growth had masked what many people now considered a recession.
While inflation has fallen, he said it was unclear at what level interest rates were likely to settle.
car import challenges
Ensuring landside capacity at ports in order to handle greater volumes of car deliveries is a key area of focus, Freight Victoria executive director Praveen Reddy says.
Mr Reddy was a speaker at the conference and told the gathering about the importance of ensuring commercial ports have sufficient capacity as “primary trade gateways” to handle growing freight volumes.
“Ninety percent of [Victorian] trade comes through the port of Melbourne,” he said.
“We are in a unique position where we have a city-based port. A lot of the distribution is not very far from the port It is really important that we ensure that we have capacity there.”
Mr Reddy said the changing nature of the automotive sector became apparent recently when biosecurity concerns led to large numbers of vehicles and machinery being stranded off the Australian coast.
“One thing that became apparent came to us… when we had issues with biosecurity with vehicles and 60,000 vehicles off the coast of Australia,” he said.
“One thing that dawned on us was, we actually don’t make our own cars anymore. [We need to ask] have we got enough landside capacity for all the cars that we bring in?
“Bigger ships are coming in but {they are] doing fewer runs. We have to make sure we have the landside capacity.”
