China trade dispute: WA Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan blames Trump-like attitude to poor relations

WA’s Agriculture Minister has blamed the embracing of a Trump-like attitude to international affairs for Australia’s deteriorating Chinese relations, claiming the US President inspired Prime Minister Scott Morrison to “take to the megaphone to attack China”. With a raft of Australian exports — including barley, beef and cotton — already impacted, Alannah MacTiernan warned further threat loomed for WA producers without Federal action to smooth trade tensions. Speaking to The West Live host Jenna Clarke on Friday, Ms MacTiernan said Mr Morrison’s push for an international investigation into the origins of COVID-19 was the pressure-point in a string of political decisions that sparked the Chinese trade dispute. Weighing in on the US Presidential Election, Ms MacTiernan said a shake up in the administration could ease global trade uncertainty. “(Poor relations) with China has come about because of a really erratic and irresponsible regime that has been led from the US,” Ms MacTiernan said. “I just hope for the sake of the world that there is a change in administration. “Hopefully, if we can get back on to a more moderate path where we can reduce the tensions around the globe, start getting our relationships back on some sort of even keel and we won’t have Mr Trump inspiring our prime minister to take to the megaphone to attack China.” Ms MacTiernan urged the Federal Government to stop following the US-led anti-China regime, stop “publicly shaming our major trading partner” and to get discussion with their Chinese counterparts under way again. “The wait and see approach has demonstrably failed. We need to do (this) in a much more active way, try to repair the relationship,” she said. “I think there’s been a lot of postures that have been taken for domestic considerations that have had this real quite major impact on our industries. “In the eastern states there’s not an appreciation of how much of the nation’s wealth actually generated from the relationship that we have with China. “A very large extent come from these exporters largely based in WA that are doing business with China. She said many WA producers in single-export markets held heightened level of concern over their future, with suggestions that wheat exports could be next. University of WA Perth USAsia Centre research director Jeffrey Wilson seconded Ms MacTiernan’s comments and said the tensions with the Asian super power stretched beyond the coronavirus pandemic to the South China Sea dispute, human-rights crises and cyber security concerns. “What we’ve seen is less a trade war with China at the moment and more the form of psychological warfare that’s really been waged on WA farmers,” he said. “No one knows what’s going on everyone is panicking and fearful and part of what this has done is that it has put fear and terror throughout all of Western Australia’s businesses as the major exporters at the moment. “Even if today comes and goes and this rumoured ban never happens, it will of achieved its affect of psychological warfare and in restraining our ability to go about normal business.”