CANBERRA, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leaders, on the campaign trail for the nation's general election have widely condemned U.S. President Donald Trump's new tariffs.

Trade barriers on Thursday became a dominant issue in Australia's election campaign after Trump announced in Washington a baseline 10 percent tariff on imports on Wednesday afternoon local time.

Delivering an immediate response to Trump's announcement on the sixth day of campaigning for the general election on May 3, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that the tariffs have "no basis in logic" and were "not the act of a friend."

He announced that the government would provide one billion Australian dollars (629.4 million U.S. dollars) in zero-interest loans to help businesses impacted by the tariffs capitalize on new export opportunities, strengthen anti-dumping laws to protect local aluminum and steel manufacturers and establish a strategic reserve of minerals.

"Our government will always stand up for Australian jobs, Australian industry, Australian consumers and Australian values," he said.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton described the tariffs as a "bad day" for Australia, but criticized Albanese and his Labor Party government for failing to secure an exemption.

Dutton, who has previously drawn comparisons to Trump and in February described the president as "shrewd" and a "big thinker," said that Australia's critical minerals and defense manufacturing could have been leveraged to negotiate an exemption from the tariffs.

"We have enormous capacity to contribute to the United States in a very uncertain time, and provide assurances in relation to their surface fleet and subsurface fleet -- all that is something that Australia brings to the table," Dutton told reporters in Western Australia.

Campaigning in South Australia, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that he has asked the Treasury to update modeling about the impact of the tariffs on the nation's economy.

He said that the United States represents about five percent of Australia's export market, but that the economy would not be "immune" to the global impacts of the tariffs.

"These escalating trade tensions, these tariffs announced by the Trump administration in Washington DC, are self-defeating, they are self-sabotaging, and in a time when there's not a lot of growth in the global economy, this will slow global growth and it will push priors higher as well around the world," Chalmers said.

If neither Labor nor Dutton's Coalition wins a clear majority of the 150 seats in the lower house of Australia's parliament, the House of Representatives, at the general election, both major parties will enter negotiations with minor parties and independents for their support to form a minority government.

In such an eventuality, known as a hung parliament, the left-wing Greens party, which currently holds four lower house seats, could hold the balance of power.

Adam Bandt, the leader of the Greens who previously ruled out supporting Dutton and the Coalition to form a minority government, responded to the new tariffs with a call to "end" the AUKUS security partnership.

"Forget Trump's 'Liberation Day', today should be Australia's liberation day -- when we finally liberate ourselves from being shackled too closely to Trump," he posted on social media.

"Let's cancel AUKUS and set our own independent foreign policy."

In 2021, leaders of Australia, the United States and Britain formed the AUKUS pact, which aimed to deepen cooperation among the three countries in defense and security. Enditem

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