Australia’s trade minister says Trump plan to double steel and aluminium tariffs to 50% ‘not the act of a friend’

Donald Trump has told steelworkers that raising tariffs would ‘secure the steel industry in the United States. Nobody is going to get around that.’ Photograph: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Australia’s trade minister, Don Farrell, has described Donald Trump’s trade tariffs as “unjustified and not the act of a friend”, after the US president announced he would double import duties on steel and aluminium to 50%.

Trump told a steelworkers rally in Pittsburgh that raising the tariff would “even further secure the steel industry in the United States. Nobody is going to get around that”.