Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers says building resilience in the face of global economic uncertainty will be a core element of the budget to be handed down on the evening of March 25.
Chalmers has described the budget as a chance to put the economy “front and centre” in the lead-up to the election, hailing it as a “budget to build Australia’s future.”
But one factor stands out in Chalmers’ messaging on the upcoming budget—resilience.
With U.S. President Donald Trump set to hand down his latest round of tariffs in just days, and with numerous American industries calling for change in how the United States does business with Australia, the topic of tariffs appears to have left its impression.
“One of the major themes of the budget is making our economy more resilient in the face of all of this global economic uncertainty,” Chalmers told the ABC.
“We have expressed on multiple occasions, and I will again today, our concern about these escalating trade tensions.
“We’re a very trade exposed country. We’re not uniquely impacted by these tariffs out of Washington D.C., but we’ve got a lot of skin in the game.”
Chalmers said the budget would also attempt to offer cost-of-living help to buffer any impacts from overseas trade issues.
“And so what the budget will be about in addition to helping with the cost of living and strengthening Medicare, it will also be about making us more resilient to these external shocks,” Chalmers said.
“There will be a little bit of funding to promote ‘Buy Australian’ in Australia but also more broadly the billions of dollars that we’re investing in things like green metals—making sure that we are reliable parts of global supply chains as they change in response to these U.S. tariffs. That’s a big defining feature of the budget.”
Chalmers said the federal government’s contingency was to make the economy more resilient.
“When we talk about building Australia’s future, what we’re really talking about is making our economy more competitive and dynamic and productive but also more resilient,” he said.
“Now this is a new world of uncertainty, and the budget will be a platform for prosperity in that new global context.
“A lot of the investments that we’re making in our Future Made in Australia are all about that.”
Chalmers claims Australia has turned a corner economically, and that things are looking up.
“I think what we’re trying to do here is to make the right economic decisions for the right reasons and I say to people who are worried about these global developments, the Australian economy has genuinely turned a corner,” he said.
Impact of Tariffs
According to economist Saul Eslake, only 4 percent of Australia’s goods are sent to the United States, so even in the face of tariffs, the overall impact on the economy should be minimal.However, some export categories are more exposed, including beef where 27 percent of exports were sent to the United States in 2023-24.
In the same financial year, Australia exported 54 percent of its pharmaceutical products to the states, 30-37 percent of specialised products such as aircraft parts, and 33 percent of iron and steel.
