As the world deals with the turmoil of Trump’s erratic tariffs, the latest data shows Australia is among the winners on exports, as Alan Austin reports.
CALENDAR 2024 was another challenging year for major exporting nations. Low global economic growth, lingering tariffs imposed during Donald Trump’s disastrous first presidency, supply chain disruptions due to wars and high transport costs all took a toll.
Only two of the 35 wealthy countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) who reported last year’s exports to the World Bank increased exports relative to gross domestic product (GDP) over 2022. They were Ireland and Sweden.
Australia’s exports of goods in 2024-25 continued last year’s gradual decline from the 2022-23 peak, but remained above $500 billion for the fourth straight year. So not too shabby.
Fortunately, Australia also exports substantial volumes and values of services as well as goods. These include secondary and tertiary education, travel services, professional and management consulting, and intellectual property. Curiously, these are not recorded by the Bureau of Statistics (ABS) each month as are exports of goods.
World Bank ranks Australia highly
The World Bank’s development indicators show recent export and import outcomes for 177 economies, including all OECD members. Not one of those 35 advanced economies has succeeded in expanding its exports of goods and services every year over the past five years. Most went backwards in 2020 during the COVID downturn. The three exceptions to this – Ireland, Luxembourg and Lithuania – all copped a setback in 2023, which is somewhat strange.
Australia’s experience was aberrant in that exports declined for three straight years, 2020 to 2022 — the only OECD member to do so. Since records began in 1975, the only other negative years have been 1981 and 2002, also during Coalition periods.
In the latest two years on record, only three developed economies experienced positive growth above 10%. They are Denmark, Costa Rica and Australia.
Eleven economies enjoyed relatively sound expansion between 5-10%, seven grew less than that, while 14 went backwards. So these are difficult times. See chart below.
Australia’s third ranking in the OECD on export growth in 2024 contrasts with ranking 17th out of those 35 members under the Coalition in 2017, 18th in 2018 and last in 2021.
All export data over time, both within Australia and relative to the rest of the world, confirm the consistent findings of the alternative media, denied by the mainstream newsrooms, that Labor manages the economy vastly better than does the Coalition.
Labor’s progress in trade treaties
The Albanese Government succeeded in its first term in normalising diplomatic and trade relations with the European Union, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, the Solomon Islands and other neighbours following rifts caused by the inept Morrison Coalition.
Australia has now finalised mutually-beneficial trade deals with the United Kingdom, India, Thailand, New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates, and has strengthened trade alliances elsewhere.
Negotiations are currently well underway for improved trade treaties with the European Union, Canada, Peru, South Korea and Gulf States Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
These are all the more critical now that the USA has severely disrupted the established global trade order.
Impact of Trump’s destructive tariffs
The irrational decisions of the corrupt and increasingly mentally deranged U.S. President are impacting the world in an erratic manner.
So far, Australia appears to have benefited. An illustrative example is Brazil, Australia’s principal competitor in supplying beef to the USA. Brazil has copped a punitive 50% Trump tariff on beef, based on Trump’s personal bitterness towards the current reformist Lula da Silva Government for allowing his buddy, former President Jair Bolsonaro, to be tried in open court for corruption. That gives Australia a huge advantage.
The latest trade report from the ABS, with data to the end of June, confirms Australia’s exports are now rapidly expanding worldwide.
Major trading partners that bought exports 50% or more higher in 2024-25 than the value in 2018-19, pre-COVID, include Switzerland, Turkiye, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Bahrain, Peru, Vietnam and Oman.
Partners that ordered exports more than double 2018-19 include the USA, Indonesia, Mexico, Portugal, Belgium, Brunei and Bangladesh.
Countries buying exports three times higher are Pakistan, Finland and Kenya.
Media attacks proving unfounded
Australia’s craven mainstream newsrooms have been running two lines of criticism of Australia’s stance towards the USA since Trump’s inauguration last January. The first is that Prime Minister Albanese has failed to secure a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump to press Australia’s case on tariff rates.
The second is that former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is a liability in his role as Ambassador to the U.S. because of his past sharp criticisms of Trump’s character, his authoritarianism, divisive rhetoric and climate change denial.
Pointedly, given Rudd’s expertise in Asian affairs and fluency in Mandarin, Rudd has also strongly condemned Trump’s confrontational stance towards China.
Neither appears vindicated. The Government’s approach to dealing with Trump’s tariff threats – which Australia’s quiet achiever, Trade Minister Don Farrell, describes as “cool, calm diplomacy” – is working. Australia has secured the minimum tariff level of 10%. America’s only significant trading partner, better placed with 0%, is Russia, whose President now effectively dictates U.S. economic policy.
Australia achieved that low rate despite no meeting, despite Rudd still the top envoy and without having seduced Trump with a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize or a free personal luxury jet or other bribes which are now brazenly transacted.
While the full effects of Trump’s tariffs remain unknown, Australians can look ahead with reasonably well-founded optimism.
Alan Austin is an Independent Australia columnist and freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter @alanaustin001.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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