US President Donald Trump has signalled he’ll target Australia beef imports as he delivered his much-anticipated “Liberation Day” announcement on sweeping tariffs.

“Australia bans — and they’re wonderful people, and wonderful everything — but they ban American beef,” he said on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) in a news conference at the White House in Washington DC.

“Yet we imported $US3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone.

“They won’t take any of our beef.

“They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers and you know, I don’t blame them but we’re doing the same thing right now starting at midnight tonight, I would say.”

Australia will be subject to a “baseline” 10 per cent tariff on all exports to the US. Other countries, such as China, face much higher tariffs.

During his announcement, Trump held up a chart showing the tariffs that will imposed on individual countries and trading blocs.

Australia was also not visible from behind the lectern as Trump held up a sandwich board with each nation named.

But taking the sign was US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick – where at the bottom of the chart it could be seen that the US would implement a 10 per cent reciprocal tariff on Australia. 

Trump says his tariffs are about national security as much as economic prosperity.

He picked out medicine, tech, and ship manufacturing as being areas where the US was dependent on imports.

“We have to go to foreign countries to treat our sick,” he said.

“In short, chronic trade deficits are no longer merely an economic problem, they’re a national emergency that threatens our security and our very way of life. It’s a very great threat to our country.

“And for these reasons, starting tomorrow, the United States will implement reciprocal tariffs on other nations.”

Stocks fall after Trump announcement

US stocks tumbled in after-hours trading as President Donald Trump delivered remarks at the Rose Garden and unveiled sweeping tariffs.

Dow futures tumbled 256 points, or 0.61 per cent. S&P 500 futures slid 1.69 per cent. Futures tied to the Nasdaq 100 fell 2.54 per cent.

Stocks had closed higher ahead of Trump’s tariff announcement, but began to slide as Trump revealed his administration’s plan for rolling out tariffs.

Exchange-traded funds that track the major stock indexes also tumbled in after-hours trading. An ETF tracking the Dow fell 1.1 per cent, while an ETF tracking the S&P 500 slid 2.2 per cent and an ETF tracking the Nasdaq 100 slid 3 per cent.

Meanwhile, the most actively traded gold futures contract in New York briefly rose above US$3200 a troy ounce, a record high. Gold is up more than 20 per cent this year and just posted its best quarter since 1986. Gold is considered a safe haven amid economic and political uncertainty.