Australians vow ban on American goods after Donald Trump confirms steel and aluminium exemptions are off the table

Aussies have vowed to boycott American goods and buy local after the Trump administration confirmed Australia would not be exempt from 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports.

Following Wednesday’s decision, Australians have flooded social media in retribution for the levies, with Anthony Albanese also stating that “Australians can have an impact by buying Australian goods,” despite not going as far to recommend a boycott.

“There are a range of things that we can do without hurting our consumers. One of the things that we can do is to buy Australian,” the Prime Minister said.

“You buy Bundy soft drinks rather than some of the American products.”

One user in the 123,000-member Facebook group Buy Australian Made and Owned urged fellow members to “boycott USA made goods in particular Tesla products”.

“Like Canada, we as consumers can impose our own tariffs,” he said.

In under 24 hours, the post received 576 reactions, 433 comments and 43 shares.

A separate post also urged Australians to “follow Canada’s lead”.

“BUY Australian products NOT US products. For example there are plenty of Australian-made bourbons. Give Jack Daniels a miss,” he wrote.

Independent economist Saul Eslake said it was “absolutely justified” for Australians to “spurn American products wherever they can, whether they’re cheaper or not”.

He said shopping habits could be shifted to buying Canadian, European, Japanese or Korean made goods as well.

“It might be a gesture of solidarity with Canadians to drink Canadian Club instead of Jim Beam,” he said.

“Similarly Australian women might not want to buy American made cosmetics, and instead choose French brands.”

He said citizen-led activism boycotts were economically more effective than “retaliatory tariffs” which would only harm Australians due to our trade surplus with the US.

“We would be shooting ourselves in the foot, that would be circular firing squad stuff,” he said.

However he urged caution on blanket bans on American brands like McDonalds or KFC which are franchised and source ingredients from Australian farmers.

“People should stop patronising anything that has an American-sounding label but people could think twice about buying things that are directly sourced from the US – people might want to rethink about going to Hawaii or Florida for a holiday,” he said.

“In a sense, it’s far more powerful if this is actually a conscious decision by millions of Australian people.”

Unlike Europe and Canada, Australia has chosen not to apply countermeasures on US goods, with the Labor still advocating for continued negotiations.

On Thursday Trade Minister Don Farrell confirmed he was set to meet Washington’s trade envoy on Sunday and participate in “two-way trade talks”.

“We buy $70bn worth of product from them; we only sell $30bn worth of product,” he said.

“It makes absolutely no economic sense to impose tariffs on Australia in those circumstances.

“This is not the way to increase your prosperity.

“The way to increase your prosperity is tariff-free trade between our countries.”