Australian news and politics live: Jim Chalmers responds to Donald Trump’s copper, pharmaceutical tariffs

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In the meantime, you can catch up on the key stories and headlines in tonight’s edition.

The Treasurer reasserted that Australia’s copper exports to the US make up only a “tiny sliver” of overall exports.

“(The) First point I make about copper is that our exports to the US are a tiny sliver of our overall copper exports,” Dr Chalmers said in Canberra.

“We’ve got a wonderful copper industry, some terrific businesses involved in exporting copper, but it’s it’s less than 1 per cent of our copper (that) goes to the US.

“That’s not nothing, but it’s not a big chunk of our copper exports.

Dr Chalmers said the Government will “work through all of the potential costs and consequences”, including the “important role that copper will play in the global net zero transformation”.

Dr Chalmers says “the PBS is not on the table in any negotiation” with the Albanese Labor Government.

The Treasurer said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Government was “about strengthening the PBS in the interests of our people, not weakening it in the interests of American multinationals”.

“We’ve made that clear on a number of occasions. If you look at our record when it comes to the PBS, we see it as an absolutely crucial part of our health policy architecture,” Dr Chalmers said.

“We’ve spent a great deal of our time in office and substantial public funds to strengthen the PBS, not weaken it.

“It is not on the table in any negotiation. We’ve made that clear at every opportunity.”

Dr Chalmers said the Government think Mr Trump’s tariffs “inject an unnecessary element of uncertainty, unpredictability and volatility in the global economy”, adding the timing was “unwelcome”.

“Whether it’s the developments on copper and pharmaceuticals or the tariffs more broadly, we’ve made it clear we see them as bad for the American economy, the Australian economy and The global economy, and this extra element of unpredictability comes at a very unwelcome time,” he said on Wednesday.

“There’s already a lot of uncertainty in the global economy. We are better placed and better prepared to deal with that uncertainty, but we’re not immune from it, and so it’s concerning from that perspective, to see these announcements made overnight, we have spent some time working our way through these developments.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the Albanese Government will work with both the United States Government and with key manufacturers as they desperately attempt to get more details on US President Donald Trump’s new proposed tariffs.

“There are two major developments from President Trump overnight, the first relating to copper, the second relating to pharmaceuticals,” Dr Chalmers said.

“Only a very small amount of Australian copper is exported to the US. There is a bigger market for pharmaceuticals.”

“We’ll continue to engage with our counterparts in the US on these issues.

“We’ll continue to engage with our own exporters and industries to work through the potential costs and consequences of what’s being proposed.”

A prominent Australian lawyer has been found dead at a Thai massage parlour, just minutes from the location where cricket legend Shane Warne passed away in 2022.

Christopher Saines, the 43-year-old CEO of Brisbane-based law firm GLG Legal, was discovered unresponsive around 6am on Monday at the Siam Touch Massage parlour on the popular tourist island of Koh Samui.

Emergency services were called to the shop in Bo Phut, close to the villa where Warne died, around 7am after a masseuse noticed the lawyer wasn’t breathing.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Phumaret Inkong from Bo Phut Police Station said officers found Mr Saines “lying dead” when they arrived at the parlour near Chaweng Beach.

“He had just finished getting a massage, dressed, and went to the bathroom. Then, he asked to sit and rest on the bed for a moment, and he simply fell asleep,” he said.

Read the full story here.

Bob Katter, the Independent member for Kennedy, has praised Donald Trump’s tariffs as evidence of “America’s bid to protect its industries” and warned that they highlight “Australia’s dangerous failure to do the same.”

In a statement, Mr Katter said: “Trump’s protecting his industries from the uncontestable, government-backed mega-production coming out of China.”

He contrasted China’s economic approach with Australia’s, saying: “The Chinese government doesn’t throw money away on ego monuments and feel-good ‘net-zero’ whims. It builds factories that produce things, freeways and tunnels that create wealth and economic generation.”

Mr Katter accused the “Australian Government, on the other hand, of having obliterated our production sector in favour of ideology and self-indulgence.”

He said his party and other regional cross-benchers will pitch an Omnibus Bill “to reshape Australia’s economy and re-establish essential industries.”

His warning was clear: “This delusion must stop. Australia must follow America’s lead and start protecting our own industries, primary producers and manufacturers.”

In the first Cold War between America and the Soviet Union, the two superpowers fought each other by proxy.

Something similar is happening in America’s trade war with China. After conciliatory talks in Geneva and London, the two sides are no longer bashing each other with new tariffs.

Instead, America is waging its war indirectly, through unfortunate third countries.

Its new deal with Vietnam and its fresh tariff threats issued to many other countries seem designed to reduce China’s role in their supply chain. Countries that had hoped to stay out of the new cold war now fear they are being forced to pick a side.

To appease the world’s biggest market, they must anger the world’s biggest trader.

On July 7, Donald Trump, America’s president, sent letters to Japan, South Korea and a dozen other trading partners pushing back the deadline for their trade talks from July 9 to August 1 and tweaking the tariffs they will face if talks fail.

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The Australian Greens have made fresh calls for Environment Minister Murray Watt to scrap his provisional approval of the North West Shelf gas project off WA amid a UNESCO bid over nearby rock art this week.

Mr Watt has left Paris to join Traditional Owners in advocating for the rock art to be placed on the World Heritage list.

Their push comes after UNESCO’s draft decision, released in May, said the committee wouldn’t list it while industrial operations continue in the area.

Greens leader Larissa Waters on Wednesday called on Senator Watt to rescind his North West Shelf approval to give Murujuga cultural landscape the best chance of World Heritage Listing.

“To give Murujuga’s ancient rock art the best chance of World Heritage listing, Minister Watt should cancel the draft approval for Woodside’s 45 year extension on operating its gas proposal,” she said.

Senator Waters said The Greens stand with Save Our Songlines advocate Raelene Cooper, who has also travelled to Paris to push for the listing but unlike other groups, wants the North West Shelf extension axed.

One of the Republican Party’s most senior figures has blasted the “self-indulgent restrainers” inside the Trump Administration, querying AUKUS.

Veteran Republican Mitch McConnell, who served as Senate party leader for 18 years and is a Senator for the state of Kentucky, said that President Donald Trump was having to continually mop up after the messes made by internal restrainers.

He did not name anyone specifically, but was commenting on Mr Trump’s pledge to restart supplies of weapons to Ukraine, which had been halted by the Pentagon’s Under Secretary of Defence for Policy, Elbridge Colby.

The Pentagon has described as “flat out wrong” a report by US Politico claiming that Mr Colby’s decision to pause munitions to Ukraine, after conducting an internal review of supplies, caught President Trump’s allies by surprise.

​Read the full story here.​