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Dodging Trump’s huge steel tariff · The Front

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, February eleventh. Chris Dawson's lawyers are seeking leave
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  Speaker 1: to appeal to the High Court against his conviction for
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  Speaker 1: murdering his wife, Lynette Simms. The former footballer who was
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  Speaker 1: charged after The Australian's podcast The Teacher's Pet, says the
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  Speaker 1: criminal courts have got it wrong and he couldn't get
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  Speaker 1: a fair trial because police took nearly four decades to
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  Speaker 1: charge him. Ancient cave paintings on the Knullyball Plane in
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  Speaker 1: South Australia are at serious risk of decay. That's according
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  Speaker 1: to scientists and indigenous owners. Research and conservation have been
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  Speaker 1: halted because two groups of traditional owners and native title
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  Speaker 1: holders can't agree on who should oversee the painstaking work.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Those exclusives alive now at the Australian dot Com dot
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: a U. The pressure's on for Anthony Albnezy and Ambassador
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Kevin Rudd to persuade Donald Trump to exempt Australia from
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  Speaker 1: sweeping twenty five percent tariffs on steel and aluminium. The
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  Speaker 1: Prime Minister says he's got a phone call lined up
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  Speaker 1: with the White House, but in the policy whirlwind of Washington, DC,
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  Speaker 1: Will Australia's please be heard? That's today's episode. Before we start,
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  Speaker 1: there's a bit of Billy Connolly and therefore some swearing
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  Speaker 1: in this episode. We want yes and that, we demand
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  Speaker 1: the share of that and most of that, some of
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  Speaker 1: this and fucking all of that. This episode of the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Front is about Donald Trump, but sometimes the person to
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: best sum up the mood of the moment is Billy Connolly.
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  Speaker 2: And another thing, we want no, I want it, yes
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  Speaker 2: are they? I want fucking lord tomorrow and the demands
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  Speaker 2: will all be changed. A fucking stairwek.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: The Scottish comedic genius, was talking about the women's movement
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: back in the eighties, but he could have been talking
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: about the first three weeks of the Trump administration. Reducks.
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  Speaker 3: I'm having an early morning shock every single day, Claire.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: It's the most remarkable news cycle I can recall in
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  Speaker 3: forty years of journalism. Donald Trump mark two is not
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  Speaker 3: just one announcement a day. It's about seven different major
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: announcements a day. It's been absolutely spectacular.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: That's Cameron Stewart, the Australian's chief international correspondent, and we're
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: talking about Trump's latest big announcement. Mad to board Air
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Force One as he traveled to the Super Bowl in
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: New Orleans, the first sitting president to attend America's most
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  Speaker 1: sacred sporting day. Trump was mid sentence in his leather
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  Speaker 1: armchair chatting to a group of reporters when an announcement
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  Speaker 1: came from the cockpit.
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  Speaker 4: Ya, in a gentleman, if you could please direct your
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  Speaker 4: opinion out the right flout of the aircraft. The Air
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  Speaker 4: Force One is currently in international waters the first time
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  Speaker 4: in history, applying over the recently renamed tom of America.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, who did that? Well again, that's all we care about. Okay,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: here we go.
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  Speaker 1: In the days since we did our last episode about
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, the President has renamed the Gulf of Mexico.
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  Speaker 1: He's announced the United States will own Gaza. He's reintroducing
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  Speaker 1: plastic straws, sacking thousands of federal public servants, sanctioning the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: International Criminal Court, negotiating between Live Golf and the PGA,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: releasing water from Californian dams to fight wildfires. And this
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  Speaker 1: is the bit that sent international markets and the Australian
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  Speaker 1: government into Defcon one.
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  Speaker 2: We will also be announcing steel tariffs on Mondays, while Monday,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: yuh tomorrow, pot Patris Wile has gone everybody Steell, including Canada,
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  Speaker 2: Eddy Steele coming into the United States is going to
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  Speaker 2: have a twenty five percent going to do a little
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  Speaker 2: bit to twenty percent.
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  Speaker 1: Or just like that, the President sent markets into meltdown
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  Speaker 1: with a new iteration of his ideas on free trade
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  Speaker 1: and protectionism. Last year, Australia sent about a billion dollars
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  Speaker 1: worth of steel and aluminium to the United States that.
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  Speaker 3: Would be in Australian jobs would be lost, it would
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  Speaker 3: be a real problem for the Australian economy and it
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  Speaker 3: would be a major, major bilateral issue between the two countries.
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  Speaker 3: So we are basically looking at a situation clear where
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  Speaker 3: all the things that have been speculated about the Trump
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  Speaker 3: administration and Australia, we will find some big answers in
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  Speaker 3: the next couple of days as to exactly what Donald
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  Speaker 3: Trump thinks of Australia, exactly what he thinks of the friendship,
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  Speaker 3: the alliance, and exactly how far he wants to push.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Things in his first administration, Trump talked like an old
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  Speaker 1: school protectionist. I'm here for American jobs and tariffs are
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a tool to protect American manufacturing from cheap foreign imports.
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  Speaker 1: Last week, it looked like Trump was using tariffs as
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  Speaker 1: a lever a tool of political pressure. Columbia wouldn't accept
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: military flights full of deportees, so Trump threatened a giant
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  Speaker 1: tariff on all Colombian goods. Trump said Canada wasn't doing
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  Speaker 1: enough to stop the flow of drugs like fentanyl over
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  Speaker 1: the border, so he slapped them with tariffs on air
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  Speaker 1: Force one. Trump said, any country that imposes tariffs on
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  Speaker 1: American goods will get a taste of its own medicine.
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  Speaker 2: I'll be announcing probably Tuesday, on Wednesday at a newscar
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  Speaker 2: forms reciprocal tariffs, and very simply, if they charge us,
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  Speaker 2: we charged them.
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  Speaker 3: Of course. In twenty eighteen, Trump tried to put tariffs
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  Speaker 3: on a bunch of countries for steel aliminium, exactly the
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  Speaker 3: same concept. He exempted Australia at that point, in part
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  Speaker 3: because a US has a trade surplus with Australia, so
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  Speaker 3: we don't fall into the category of a problem child
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  Speaker 3: when it comes to other countries trading with America. We
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  Speaker 3: have a free trade agreement, America has a healthy trade surplus,
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  Speaker 3: so there's not really any concept for Trump to get
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  Speaker 3: angry at Australia in the same way it gets angry
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  Speaker 3: with other countries which have a trade deficit. So that
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  Speaker 3: is hugely to Australia's advantage economically, quite apart from the
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  Speaker 3: fact that we are the closest military alliance to United
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  Speaker 3: States really of almost any country in the world. So
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  Speaker 3: there are so many arguments which the government can throw
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  Speaker 3: towards Donald Trump to argue for an exemption, but of
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  Speaker 3: course that doesn't guarantee anything.
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  Speaker 1: That's why Anthony Albanezi is now scrambling to get Trump
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  Speaker 1: on the phone. Australia's biggest steelmaker, blue Scope, which makes coloor, bond,
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  Speaker 1: roof and fencing sheets, has a huge steel mill in
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  Speaker 1: Ohio and employees about four thousand people.
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  Speaker 3: In theory, this be a non starter for this tariff
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  Speaker 3: threat from Trump to Australia because of the security and
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  Speaker 3: economic situation between the two countries. But you never know,
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  Speaker 3: that's absolutely not a guarantee with Donald Trump. Mark too.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, just go and ask Canada. I mean, there
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  Speaker 3: you have a country as friendly as you could ever
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  Speaker 3: be with the United States that's facing twenty five percent
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  Speaker 3: tariffs not just on overall, but also on their still
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  Speaker 3: and now luminium as well. So the friendship factor with
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  Speaker 3: Trump in the second term is still a very opaque one.
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  Speaker 3: It's very, very hard to get a reading on where
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  Speaker 3: America's good friends stand. And that's why it's hard to
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  Speaker 3: get a reading on this with Australia because we are
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  Speaker 3: going to come across his radar for the first time
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  Speaker 3: in his presidency in a big way with this policy.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. Can Anthony Albanezi and his ambassador secure a
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  Speaker 1: deal with be ultimate deal maker? It feels like a
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: million years ago, but it was Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: who negotiated Australia an exemption from exactly this tariff last
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: time it was proposed. His ambassador was Joe Hockey, who
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: famously had a kind of golf relationship with Donald Trump.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: They were kind of buddies. Now Anthony Albernese's ambassador in Washington,
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  Speaker 1: DC is Kevin Rudd, who has been very prickly about
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and it would seem that the feeling is mutual.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think this says about Anthony Albanese's choice
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: of Kevin Radd and his decision to stick with him.
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  Speaker 1: In the Trump administration.
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  Speaker 3: I think Anthony Albanese's decision to appoint Kevin Rudd was
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  Speaker 3: always slightly risky given and Albanese's previous criticism off Trump.
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  Speaker 3: But then you know, the Vice President JD. Evans criticized
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  Speaker 3: Trump a lot, so did Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State,
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  Speaker 3: So it's certainly not a disqualifying factor, and at that
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: point in time, to be fair, Trump was not really
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: in the picture for a second term. Look, I think
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  Speaker 3: that a lot of this stuff about the personalities when
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  Speaker 3: we talked about Albanesi and Rudd and Trump are overblown.
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  Speaker 3: I think that these decisions get made fundamentally on issues
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  Speaker 3: on realities rather than personalities. Yes, they're not of the
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  Speaker 3: same stripe politically as Trump compared to Malcolm Turnbull and
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  Speaker 3: Joe Hockey, but I mean Albanesi had a very friendly
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  Speaker 3: first phone call with Donald Trump. Rudd has subsequently met
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  Speaker 3: with Trump, is certainly very well connected to a lot
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  Speaker 3: of Republicans. So I think personally that these issues of
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  Speaker 3: politics and personality are more overblown than they should be,
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  Speaker 3: and that really this decision will come down to fairly
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  Speaker 3: hard nuts decisions about the interest of various countries, and
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  Speaker 3: I think Trump will be persuaded that Australia should get
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  Speaker 3: an exemption because it's in America's interest as much as Australia's.
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  Speaker 1: Something that's changed since last time Donald Trump was in
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  Speaker 1: the White House is the Orchest Treaty between Australia, the U,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the United States and the UK, which of course involves
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: building nuclear submarines here in Australia. How much will that
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  Speaker 1: play into this, if at all.
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  Speaker 3: Well, this actually increases Australia's leverage in this argument compared
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  Speaker 3: to twenty eighteen, when, of course AUCUST didn't exist. And
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  Speaker 3: it's quite good timing in one sense, Claire, because we've
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  Speaker 3: just had Richard Miles go over the Defense Minister and
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  Speaker 3: give several hundred million dollars towards the American nuclear submarine project.
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  Speaker 3: Because Australia is tipping in US three billion dollars to
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  Speaker 3: help the US submarine nuclear production in the United States
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  Speaker 3: as part of August, that is a very big selling
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  Speaker 3: point for Donald Trump. Now remember this is the same
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  Speaker 3: president who exempted Australia last time without AUCUST. So I
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  Speaker 3: think if you look just at the facts, there is
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  Speaker 3: a greater argument for Donald Trump to exempt Australia this
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  Speaker 3: time round than there was before.
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  Speaker 4: Now.
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  Speaker 3: The only rider I would put to this is that
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is a different president at this time round.
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  Speaker 3: He loves taris even more than a get in his
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: first term. So the question is that how much does
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  Speaker 3: he love his tariffs. In theory, Australia should get off,
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  Speaker 3: but we just don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is The Australian's chief international correspondent. You can
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: read all our analysis of what this means for Australian
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: business and everyone else right now at the Australian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot au