The U.S has increased the tariff on Australian goods to 12.5%, as it promised, because Australia has not done enough (anything?) to address forced labour in countries like China.

Canada, Britain, India, Malaysia and Argentina will pay only 10%.

The U.S rigidly enforces bans and strictures on countries using forced labour, so countries like Australia have an unfair trade advantage, according to the U.S.

The Deputy Prime Minister huffed and puffed about Australia having some of the toughest laws on forced labour etc. etc. Not so.

Justine Nolan, Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute, University of NSW, says Australia's laws are definitely not among the strongest in the world.

Only last week, the government was talking about doing better on this matter, including the imposition of criminal charges against Australian importers bringing in goods produced by forced labour.

If this was done, it would make a significant difference, according to Nolan.

Trump has worse treatment in store for the EU, following its fining of Google for its breach of the Digital Markets Act. He doesn't like American companies being treated like that by an EU that has been bludging off America for ever. He will not allow them to use America as a piggybank any longer. He has consistently warned the EU about the kind of contact that he describes as “illegal and highly unethical”. A substantial tariff will be imposed at “earliest possible moment”.

Some people are as delusional as Daffy Donald.

"The U.S has increased the tariff on Australian goods to 12.5%, as it promised, because Australia has not done enough (anything?) to address forced labour in countries like China." So, Trumps launched a fight for the rights of labour in China, very good, excellent, should be commended. Those nasty countries like Australia who import goods made in China are slapped with a big fat tariff!

"The U.S rigidly enforces bans and strictures on countries using forced labour, (like China) so countries like Australia have an unfair trade advantage, according to the U.S (According to Daffy Donald)" How noble of America to forgo billions of dollars in cheap imports from China just to protect the rights of Chinese workers. It would be wonderful if it was true.

This whole American tariff crap falls apart when you realise the self-rightest Americans import over $250 billion annually in cheap Chinese manufacturer goods, for their own consumer market. Who cares about slave labour say Daffy Donald, Americans need and deserve their cheap slave labour made toasters from China. Whose kidding who?

This is a man commanding an empire whose economy is on the brink and is demanding tributes and protection money.

Since some here seem to not understand the issue.... the US position is that countries should have policies to stop importing goods made by Chinese slave labour. Goods made by normal everyday Chinese wages workers are not targeted and can be freely imported without US sanction.

The problem for the usual suspects is that they don't want to recognise that there is slave labour in the 'workers paradise' of the CCP and therefore don't understand the point of the tariffs.

Any number of human rights groups and independent studies have demonstrated the use of slave (mainly Uighur)labour to make export products. But if you don't recognise the genocide that is being perpetrated on the Uighurs (and other minorities in the Han empire)then you can't logically recognise the slave labour.

Its got absolutely nothing to do with slave labour at all,
This is all just part of the U.S. war on multipolarism.
Just like the war in Ukraine against Russia,
just like the war against Iran in the M/E.
and just like the war against China.

"Its got absolutely nothing to do with slave labour at all,"

And yet the additional tariffs were imposed only on those countries not doing enough to combat Chinese usage of slave labour.

BTW, weren't you telling us before how stupid Trump was because the tariffs are paid, in your jaundiced view, by the US consumer. Now, when it suits, you assert (a claim without the slightest evidence) they are being used to punish other states. It must be nice to have firm opinions that are completely flexible, depending on the needs of the moment.

The US imports billions of dollars worth of goods produced by slave labour in third world countries, ranging from agricultural products to automobile components, claiming its caused by "supply chain issues".

For a country that enslaved millions of Africans down on the Ole' Plantation, they are a bunch of moral hypocrites!

"The 2023 Global Slavery Index (GSI) estimates that on any given day in 2021, there were 1.1 million people living in modern slavery in the US. This represents the highest estimated total number of people in modern slavery in the Americas, accounting for over one-fifth of people in modern slavery across the region." Walk Free Global Slave Index.

Oh... there were slaves in the US 170 years ago, so that means its OK for the CCP to enslave entire nations today. says the CCP apologist.

BTW, if you want to rely on faulty logic from 170 years ago, its estimated there were 5 times more slaves in Imperial China in the mid 19th century than in the US at the same time. And no one fought a war to free them. But that's different because...well because Paul wants it to be different.

Its pretty funny that the great defender of human rights that Paul pretends to be is opposed to efforts to reduce slavery in China.

Yes, mhaze. At least America did away with slavery, while it is still rampant in China. It's more than nutty that anyone could use America's abolition of slavery nearly two centuries ago to say that they shouldn't be trying to get other countries to do away with it in the 21st. Century.

"Yes, mhaze. At least America did away with slavery," The US imports billions of dollars worth of goods produced by slave labour in third world countries. The 2023 Global Slavery Index (GSI) estimates that on any given day in 2021, there were 1.1 million people living in modern slavery in the US. When did they do away with slavery, yesterday! YOU pair forgot that bit of information!

No one, the least of all me, condones slavery, but to be hypocritical about it like YOU pair is beyond the pale.

ttbn, if your pin-gal, the Lovely Pauline was to win the next election, she would enslave every Australian worker, see her IR comments, lazy workers sack'm all! Make slaves for her boss Gina Rhinoceros. Anyway YOU wouldn't have anything to worry about once she cuts off your Aged Welfare payments!

Paul,

Did you look up what definitions The 2023 Global Slavery Index uses for slavery. What am I saying? Its Paul, of course, he didn't look it up. Fear not Paul, I'll, as usual, help you out.

The major category of 'slavery' they claim for the USA is people in prison who are required to work. Now if you want to fall for that as being slavery equivalent to what happens to minorities in China, well go ahead. It'd be the sort of thing you usually fall for.

BTW, did you notice that The 2023 Global Slavery Index also says there 45,000 slaves in Australia using that same false definition. How about that. Quick Paul, pretend it ain't so.

"No one, the least of all me, condones slavery, "

I didn't say you condone it. Just that your loyalty to the CCP means you oppose policies to stop it in China.

"once she cuts off your Aged Welfare payments"
What makes you think I'm on the pension? As usual with Paul, he just thinks that what he wants to be true, magically becomes true. "We don't need no stinkin' facts" is Paul's mantra.

Hi Trumpster,

Comprehension my boy, "What makes you think I'm on the pension?" Nope, I don't say YOU are on Aged Welfare, read it again, that paragraph starts ttbn, not Trumpster, unless YOU and the admitted welfare snouter, are one and the same. Are YOU?

"Penal servitude in the United States refers to the system of requiring convicted prisoners to perform forced or hard labor." 90% of those sentenced to penal servitude are black, the rest mostly poor whites."

Australia is not a clean skin when it comes to "slavery", the Aboriginal forced to work as slave labour for the Cow Cocky, the black girl forced to work as a domestic slave for the business elite in Toorak and Vauclouse. Islanders used as slave labour to cut sugar cane! When will it stop!

If Hanson gets her way there will be 14 million SLAVES in Australia!
Anyone who fails to turn up for work 88% of the times and is caught out shagging off in Italy SHOULD BE SACKED!

"90% of those sentenced to penal servitude are black, the rest mostly poor whites"

There are two types of numbers. Those you look up and those you make up. Paul loves the later because 'looking up' isn't one of his traits. He just posts numbers and hopes to hell no one will check. I always check. If you look up the numbers you'll find that 33% are black, and 31% are white. Even if all the whites were poor, that still means Paul's claim are rubbish. Standard Paul there.

So circling back, the US is trying to get recalcitrant countries like Australia to do more to pressure China to stop using slave labour in their manufacturing processes in the hope this will help reduce the genocidal tendencies of the CCP toward their Mohammadian peoples.

And, out of loyalty to the CCP, Paul is opposed to that effort and will come up with all sorts of spurious arguments and numbers to put a veneer of respectability to his defence of slavery.

It is said that history doesn't repeat but that it does rhyme. In the past the left was very active in trying to excuse and justify the Soviet gulags, Soviet induced famines and Soviet show trials, coming up with all sorts of claims that the gulags were no worse than western prisons and those found guilty in show trials were clearly counter-revolutionaries.

The same thought processes now seek to find excuses for the CCP just as they sought to find excuses for the Kremlin.

Mhaze

I appreciate your learned contributions to this thread: too learned for Rotter 1405, but I can appreciate the pleasure you must get from toying with the ignorant fool. I don't have the patience. He is dead to me.

Hi Trumpster FYI

The 13th Amendment clause of US Constitution allows federal, state, and local governments to legally require incarcerated individuals to perform work. Penal servitude was enacted by several US States

The proportion of Black individuals among those sentenced to forced penal labour and convict leasing to private enterprises was approximately 90% in many state prison systems. Critics argue the system exploits vulnerable populations for corporate and government profit under the threat of punishment. Various state legislatures have pushed to "end the exception". Several states have voted to amend their own state constitutions to ban involuntary servitude entirely for prisoners.

"If you look up the numbers you'll find that 33% are black, and 31% are white." What are the other 36% GREY! YOU can't even add up!

I see YOU have a supporter in the Old Fart, the same fool who admitted he donated his welfare cash to a rip-off politician. I suppose he kicked in for the recent Italian Job as well.

Hi mhaze

"And yet the additional tariffs were imposed only on those countries not doing enough to combat Chinese usage of slave labour."

AI Overview

The United States implemented new tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on more than 60 trading partners, replacing an expiring temporary global duty.

Tariff Tiers and Rates

10% Rate: Applied to economies with a partial or active forced-labor import ban or trade agreement commitments, including Canada, India, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.

12.5% Rate: Applied to countries deemed to have insufficient supply-chain safeguards or lacking a formal ban, including Australia, China, Japan, Israel, and South Korea. (Certain nations like Japan and South Korea receive net rate adjustments based on prior trade pacts).

..

US Attacks World Economy as Investors Dump Bonds Back to Bessent
http://youtu.be/sT3pBiZGq4U

"So the US kind of seems to be having a very big panic attack on the world stage and the tariffs are now back on with a vengeance. Now this time the rates have gotten much worse for everyone. Trump desperately needs his tariff income back right now. Now taking tariffs from 10% to 12.5% is simply crazy. But here we are watching it happen in real time. Now the justification this time is ridiculous. The official excuse is now forced labor practices globally. It seems that everyone around the world are all using slaves. Now, let's be completely real about what's happening here. Trump will use any excuse he can find. He will simply conjure up anything. And he needs to reimpose the tariffs because the US government, guys, well, they're broke. Forced labor is just a convenient excuse of the day. Now, it truly does not pay to take the US seriously at face value anymore. Trump can really conjure any reason to punish the world economy at will."

- If financial experts are calling bs on it and told me about it 3 days ago, then why are you wasting my damn time?
They're not buying it! Go get yourself informed properly!

Sean Foo is hardly an expert on tariffs or U.S politicians; he is a Singaporean homsexual, his first usefulness as per Wikipedia is his contribution to LGBT and films about such nonsense. If you must use references, people who are more serious would be more convincing, perhaps. Posters’ own opinions are more interesting than those of weirdos who are getting enough attention elsewhere.

Who is wasting your “damn time” AC? You are the one fossicking around on the internet for rubbish when all you have to do is agree or disagree in your own words. In fact, you don't even have to do that if you don't want to waste your valuable time.

There's not much to think about. Trump wants to wage a tariff war on countries like Australia for not doing enough to combat forced labour in China. The first thing his hysterical detractors come up with is that he could not be that fine-minded, and all he wants is countries to buy more from America. Maybe. So what? In the past, his tariffs have been denied by the Supreme Court. Let's wait and see.

Of course the real tariff warrior is Communist China, who wages war on Australia as well as using forced labour, if it makes one of its very mild squeaks about Xi's dirty tactics.

"What are the other 36% GREY! YOU can't even add up!"

Hispanic (31%), Native American (2%), Asian and other (1%).

Hilarious. Our resident anti-racist troll thinks there's only two races - Black and White. There's so much he doesn't understand.

AC via AI wrote: "12.5% Rate: Applied to countries deemed to have insufficient supply-chain safeguards or lacking a formal ban, including Australia, "

Yes. That's what I've been saying. Glad you caught on or caught up.

Hi Trumpster.

Where did YOU get your figures from? According to YOUR figures, based on population numbers Whites are 3.5 times more likely to be imprisoned in the US than Asians, and Whites are also twice as likely to be imprisoned than Native Americans, I find that hard to believe. I'm not talking about simple imprisonment, like not paying a parking fine, but those imprisoned under penal servitude (a form of slavery as guaranteed by the 13th Amendment clause of US Constitution), there is a difference.

p/s What I will agree with is the US justice system is biased in favour of imprisoning people of colour, African Americans and Hispanics. Just as the Australian legal system heavily favours the incarceration of First Nations people.

"Where did YOU get your figures from?"

Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) Prisoners in 2023 – Statistical Tables (released 2025)

"According to YOUR figures, based on population numbers Whites are 3.5 times more likely to be imprisoned in the US than Asians, and Whites are also twice as likely to be imprisoned than Native Americans, "

Come on Paul. Even you can't be this clueless. These are actual numbers, not the numbers per head of population. eg AmerIndians make up about 2.3% of the population and about the same percent of the prison population. Whites make up about 70% of the population but only about 31% of the prison population.

"Whites are also twice as likely to be imprisoned than Native Americans,"

So with a bit of logic and infants school maths, whites are half as likely to be gaoled than AmerIndians.

"What I will agree with is the US justice system is biased in favour of imprisoning people of colour,"

Both the Australian and American systems are biased in favour of imprisoning people who commit crimes irrespective of their melanin levels.

What? No acknowledgement that you were hopelessly racist when you thought everyone in the US was either black or white? About what I'd expect.

Talking about what the U.S did or didn't do a couple of centuries ago, and what it does or doesn't do now within its own borders, won't change the fact that it is the U.S putting tariffs on us and 59 other countries, not the other way around.

Hi Trumpster,

No I did not say America was only black and white. I wasn't referring to the general prison population, but rather to those subjected to the 13th Amendment clause of the US Constitution which allows federal, state, and local governments to legally require incarcerated individuals to perform work as directed by the state. Penal servitude was enacted by several US States to facilitate the private exploitation of labour (90% black) without any form of remuneration, slavery by another name.

The 13th Amendment of the American Constitution remains relevant today because it explicitly allows forced labour as punishment for a crime. This "punishment clause" is central to modern debates about prison work, low inmate wages, labour exploration, and systemic mass incarceration. MODERN SLAVERY.

Oh look mhaze, the evidence you've been wanting to show us all.
The evidence that the Iranian people were just fed up and wanted to throw their leaders out and that all these protests movements are homegrown and grassroots

(Like Bessant didn't brag about trashing the Iranian economy beig his handiwork)

Proof the U.S wasn't involved.
http://www.youtube.com/shorts/9bchRTLNEpU

May the world be at peace without you Lindsay.

Trump bombed Iran again today.
Killed a young couple and a toddler apparently.

"private exploitation of labour (90% black) "

You might think that just fabricating numbers is convincing. You'd be wrong.

But I guess if you need to find ways to justify the geocide against the Uighurs, making up numbers is as good a policy as any other.

"Like Bessant didn't brag about trashing the Iranian economy beig his handiwork"

That's funny. Somehow AC has convinced himself that the US shouldn't try to defeat Iran via economic means. Iran is rapidly running out of money and now can't prop up their proxy armies in Lebanon, Iran and Yemen.

"Hezbollah had been forced to reorder its financial priorities as its sources of support declined.

“The group continues to pay salaries and provide some limited assistance, but it has not begun paying actual compensation,” she said. “This shows that its resources no longer allow it to meet its previous commitments.”

“Basic expenses now come first, while files requiring substantial liquidity, above all compensation, have been postponed.”

Fayad said declining Iranian influence in several regional arenas, particularly Syria and Iraq, had directly weakened Hezbollah’s financial capacity."

WTF has Iran and Lindsay Whatsit got got to with U.S tariffs against Australia? AC and a few others here will do anything, hijack any thread, to avoid starting their own threads about their own opinions, likes and dislikes. Pissweak.

Liarnese is claiming to have had a 'warm' telephone call with President Trump, during which he begged the President not to increase the trade tariff on Australia for our refusal to improve our efforts to stop slave labour in China.

Liarnese could only say that Trump was 'thinking about' it; and nothing was said about a quid pro quo. It's impossible to believe that Trump would not have reminded the fool why he was upping the tariff in the first place: didn't tell him that it would happen if Australia did what he wanted.

Looky here, ttbn is privy to conversations between the Australian Prime Minister and the American President. Claiming Albanese "begged" Trump not to increase the trade tariff on Australia. Trump has no idea about anything, from wars to tariffs, so why would Albanese beg for anything from an out of control fool like Trump?

BTW, The nasty tasting fruit who claims she is ready to be Prime Minister, when pressed, couldn't name one political leader in South East Asia. Asked What is the name of the Indoesian President? She had to admit she was clueless. Asked who is the Japanese Prime Minister, again the answer was "doneknow"! AND some Old Farts think this women would make a great PM. Me thinks not!

BTW, Prabowo Subianto has been President of Indonesia for almost two years.