I cannot help but wonder if anyone in American or Australian politics – and, for that matter, in their respective government departments – has bothered to look at the facts?

The saying, “Why let facts get in the way of a good story” is applicable here. The narrative is confected.

OBSESSION

All and sundry have played into Trump’s hyper obsession for media attention. Australia should have just waved it aside. Here’s why.

Australian and American farmers should be told the clear facts about Australia’s trade with the US.

The PM has said the 10 per cent tariff is not a friendly act and there would be no reciprocal tariff. I can’t believe he said that America is unfriendly. It’s like hiding behind your hands to a baby and then removing them and saying, Boo!

Peter Dutton has managed, at last, to loosen his trouser braces a little, thus enabling him to relax and drop that rather pained/aggressive expression he wears.

He needs to relax, even assassins have been known to smile. Think of Trump on the hustings before the election, Peter; look at him now chatting to the media in the Oval Office and Airforce One. Why are you so nervous?

The other day Dutton beat his chest and claimed that he would and could take on any world leader to protect Australia, or something like that; adding that Albanese doesn’t have the ticker for that kind of thing; all a bit childish.

It’s getting quite emotional – as if the world will end by a 10 per cent tariff.

The media I watched and listened to this morning were in a frenzy; all and sundry were being interviewed for an opinion.

Even that old socialist ratbag Bob Carr gave his view on Sky. He predicted Australia would be forced to return to French submarines as a result of US beef tariffs.

You can’t keep a good Trot down.

Trump wants Australia to buy more American beef; yes, we do buy a little.

I have written before that it’s of great concern to me (as it should be to all Australian politicians) that a country that can grow almost anything to abundance imports so much food.

You may remember our annual food imports are increasing by about 10 per cent a year and currently stand at A$28b! This is not luxury food – much of it is what would be called staple food, like potatoes.

Why would Australia import potatoes when we grow the best in the world? It’s because there’s money in it for the traders and not for the farmers.

POTATO

Australian potato farmers receive about $400-500 per tonne. In my supermarket – and in yours – we pay up to $5 per kilo. You’ve worked it out already, that’s $4000 to $5000 per tonne.

The potatoes I eat are grown about three hours’ drive away on the west coast of WA; somewhere between here a packing shed they increase enormously in value, in fact between $3600 and $4500 a tonne.

If you want frozen potatoes cut up into chips, double the price to $8000 a tonne. Then look at the country of origin and you will find that we not only have frozen spuds from New Zealand, but also from the EU, mainly Holland.

Those potato chips and many other frozen vegetables travel 6000km from Europe in a freezer ship and show a margin both for the importer and the retailer.

For all I know, they may be one and the same person; Australian supermarkets may well be the importers and the retailers.

A recent enquiry made a big fuss and claimed, which the government supported, that there is no price gouging in the supermarkets; that is bollocks, they just didn’t look into the right places.

More about that another day.

The discussion today is the emotion that is being generated by a small tariff Trump has placed on Australian exports to America. In particular, the effect it may have on those producing beef.

According to Trading Economics last year, Australia exported meat and edible offal to America worth US$4.03b (beef and lamb). Which is about 10 per cent of all exports of US$14.7b.

Of interest, the next biggest export is pearls, precious stones, metals and coins at US$2b. I wonder if Ms Kailis will cut up rough?

The story we are receiving is that the Americans and particularly the American beef producers want us to take their beef if they take ours.

That doesn’t make sense. “You take 100 tonnes of our beef and we’ll take 100 tonne of yours.”

That seems to be the debate, as illogical as it appears.

We will not take American beef because they’ve had instances in their herd of “mad cow disease” – AKA Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy – which can be fatal in humans.

We say they have it, they say they don’t.

Why Trump wants to make a fuss about beef is because he needs the vote in the big beef producing States.

What the debate seems to have missed or chosen to ignore, is that last year Australia imported food products from America worth about US$1.64b with a three-year average of US$1.55b.

Albanese said this week, we do not and will not impose a tariff on imports from America.

He should have asked what the reaction of American farmers would be if we did impose a tariff? Would the pig farmers squeal and the dairy farmers bellow?

The reality is that Trump just needs to be told that we imported US$34.7b from America last year and exported only US$14.7b to them.

JEOPARDY

America US$20b in front. That Trump would put our trade in jeopardy doesn’t make sense – and he should be told as much.

We should also remind him and his new Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth, that Australia is making a major contribution helping America handle their ever-increasing concerns over the South China Sea.

There is Pine Gap and whatever else goes on in Exmouth. We are building facilities and already hosting their nuclear submarines at Garden Island in WA.