Trump's prices deal with hammer to certain Australian companies, but others seize the “huge” luck | Business

Sydney's businessman Robert Jarmyn had an expedition of $ 250,000 in healthcare products to the United States from China when Donald Trump said his new pricing diet in early April.

When he received the invoice for this shipment, he had an additional cost struck at the top: $ 125,000, simply labeled “Truff Trump”.

“It was quite devastating, blood pressure increased,” said Jarmyn. “It was like,” Well, what are we doing now? ” »»

Higher samples from products from China have forced Jarmyn, Blaq skin care activities to suspend exports. “I just put anything on the water since,” he says.

About 2 million American customers buy its products, but the current prices would send the retail price of a Mask Face Blaq from $ 29 to almost $ 80. “No one would buy him,” said Jarmyn.

Blaq is one of around 12,000 Australian companies that sell in the United States. Sales of Australian manufacturing products must now pay duties of 10%, while companies counting on Chinese manufacturing, such as Blaq, are faced with a huge rate of 145%.

One month after the announcement of Trump's “Liberation Day”, Australian exporters are trying to determine how to stay afloat. Some close, others find new export markets and some benefit from chaos. Many hold their breath in anticipation of more business changes.

Stay calm and pour

Tariff uncertainty, arousing higher costs of costs and lower sales in the United States, have thrown local businesses and investors into a round. The equity market has lost almost $ 200 billion in value in less than a week, because the S&P / ASX 200 slipped by 8%.

These losses have since been recovered, helped by an increasing awareness that the direct impact of tariffs on local businesses would be limited.

Although the United States is the main black market in Jarmyn, American customers are only one of the many companies like Tyrrell's Wines.

The director general of the company, Bruce Tyrrell, sold tens of thousands of cases a year in the United States in the 1990s, but this fell to less than 3,000.

“You never get away from the United States, but it will probably not be the number one priority,” said the fourth generation winemaker.

The Americans bought $ 24 billion in Australian products in 2024, less than India and South Korea, while Japan has bought this figure and China seven times more, Australian Statistics Bureau The data show.

According to a westpac analysisPrices can even barely affect companies selling agricultural or mining products in the United States, although manufacturers and beef farmers are more vulnerable.

Despite the market frenzy, the pricing regime should not undergo direct damage to the economy of Australia in the short term, explains Stephen Smith, partner at Deloitte Access Economics.

“It might seem countertop … [but] About 4% of goods exports in Australia by the value of the United States, which means that the direct impact of the 10% tariff applied to Australia is likely to be immaterial, “Smith wrote in a recent note.

The greater risk for local businesses of the collapse of a global consensus of 80 years and an ongoing trade war between the United States and China emitted confidence in the world – “a cause of deep concern,” added Smith.

Trump initially threatened rates as high as 49% worldwide, then took them back until June, leaving most countries over the 10% rate. The uncertainty about future rate rates has shaken market faith in the United States and will threaten global growth, warned the International Monetary Fund.

Tyrrell, who started selling to the Americans when Richard Nixon was president, says that he will now focus on new Asian markets.

“”[Trump] could stand up tomorrow and say: “No imported wine, we have prohibited the lot,” he says.

The IMF in April has reduced its forecasts of economic growth in Australia, the United States and the world. At the end of April, the data showed that the American economy had already shrunk in the months that even preceded that the general prices were not announced, arousing the fears of an American recession.

Move to America

While many companies around the world find it difficult to adapt to chaos, the businessman of Western Australia Mark Chapman said that he “has trouble seeing a drawback”.

Chapman's skin care company, clean and pure, had ceased to sell its lip balms and solar screens in the United States after the start of the pandemic. But he rushes his products in the United States while prices disrupt greater competitors, including the bees of Nivea and Burt.

“It is exciting, because large dominant societies rush, and although they rush and move at the speed of a glacier, we enter it,” he says.

In June, Chapman's colleagues will be in Texas to install a clean and pure warehouse. They will join his Australian compatriot Andrew Coppin, the co-founder of the technological company Farmbot, who counts his lucky stars that he moved to Fort Worth last year to create a factory for his growing American customers.

“It was sort of fortuitous that we did this, and it was cheaper to build certain things locally,” explains Coppin. “The potential here is enormous.”

Blaq has also tried to start making its creams and masks for the skin in the United States, but nearly 20 American manufacturers have refused to take them, either because it is outside their capacity, or because the prices on China make it prohibitive.

Without new producers outside of China or new markets outside the United States, Jarmyn's best hope is Trump's suggestion that the mega-tail on China could drop.

“There is no way around the world, it could stay via this level,” says Jarmyn.

But if this is the case, he will have a decision to be made in June.

Unlike Chapman de Clean and Pure, he will not seek to improve his American activities but to completely take the catch.

“I hope something happens at the end of June. If this is not the case, it means that I really have to pivot quite quickly. ”