Key Points
- Anthony Albanese has called on Australians to buy local products.
- Canadians are boycotting some US goods and road trips.
- US tariffs on Chinese steel will hurt Australia more, an expert says.
As the Trump administration and signals that there’s more to come, angry consumers are voting with their feet.
In Canada, the US’s largest trading partner, liquor such as bourbon and Californian wines have been pulled from shop shelves in several provinces as part of a boycott of US goods.
Canada has hit back with its own 25 per cent tariffs on US-produced goods, with the latest round amounting to C$29.8 billion ($32.8 billion).
It appears Canadian tourists are boycotting the US in protest too: the number of Canadians taking road trips to the US last month was down 23 per cent on 2024, prompting the US Travel Association to warn that a sustained 10 per cent drop in inbound travel from Canada would cost the southern neighbour US$2.1bn ($3.3 billion) in tourism dollars.
Elon Musk’s involvement with the US administration and support of Germany’s far-right political party AFD appears to have angered potential Tesla customers in Europe. Sales of the electric vehicle brand are down sharply across the continent with Germany reporting a 76 per cent fall in February.
That sentiment appears to have reached Australian shores too, with sales of Tesla cars down 66 per cent last month.
Now, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is encouraging Australians to ‘buy local’ where they can.
Albanese said the federal budget — set to be delivered on 25 March — will include extra support for a “buy Australian” campaign and described US tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium as ‘unjustified’.
So, how effective is it to buy Australian goods and is it possible to avoid US goods and services altogether?
Intricately woven supply chain
Global supply chain expert and lecturer at the Australian National University’s College of Business and Economics David Leaney told SBS News that consumers can have a collective political voice by boycotting certain goods but in reality, it was hard to do.
“Even if you bought a European car instead of an American one there will be lots of integrated circuit chips that will have come from America,” he said.
“It’s almost impossible to find something that you’ve bought from overseas and know where all of the components have come from.
“If you’re buying something that’s Australian-made and Australian-owned then you’ve got a much better chance of knowing what’s in it.”
Some Australian products or services may meet the requirements of ‘Australian made’ despite being produced by subsidiaries of larger US parent companies. Leaney said this was yet more evidence of how intricately woven the global supply chain is.
“Australian software services, for example, might have a US global parent company. It’s kind of important that we do support the Australian subsidiaries because they’re paying tax in Australia and employing Australian workers,” he said.
“If Australians want to take a stand against American products, my main message is ‘good on you’, but since everything is so interconnected, you’re probably just picking the really big things like Tesla cars.
“But then consumer must ask themselves, do you necessarily want to be supporting the number one competitor of Tesla, which is Chinese company BYD?”
According to the UN COMTRADE database Australia imports from the US totalled US$34.72 billion ($55.15 billion) in 2024.
Australian tariffs ‘irrelevant’
Leany said: “Of all of the metals that Australia makes, less than 1 per cent gets exported to the US. So, the tariffs on Australian exports to the US are kind of irrelevant.”
“What is relevant are American tariffs on Chinese steel, which cause China to adjust and buy less Australian iron ore and bauxite, which are two things that we mine and export in huge volumes.”
He said this would actually hit Australians.
“That means anything you make with those products becomes more expensive. For Australians, it means cars and trucks will become more expensive, which means the price of transport will go up, which means the cost of transporting apples or cornflakes or toilet paper or whatever goes up.
“Thankfully, those prices don’t go up at the same percentage as the tariff — but it will affect them by 1 or 2 per cent. It’s a small and steady increase in the price of goods, caused indirectly by the cost of transportation.
Leany described tariffs as a blunt instrument. “They usually hurt the people you’re not intending to hurt, and they don’t necessarily hurt the people you’re trying to hurt,” he said.
