The United States is planning to impose a 12.5 per cent tariff on goods from Australia, alleging the country has failed to take action to prevent slavery and forced labour.
Anthony Albanese says any tariff on Australian exports to the US is “unjustified and inconsistent” with the free trade agreements between the two allies.
Former Australian ambassador to the US Joe Hockey says Donald Trump is convinced that tariffs are beneficial to the US.
The US plans to slap the new tariff on dozens of countries for allegedly failing to “address the importation of goods made with forced labour”.
I hope every country tariffs in return, citing how the US uses prison labor for all sorts of things and pays them so low it would take a full day to earn enough to buy a pack of ramen soup.
In some states, inmates may be paid as little as $0.12 per hour, a fraction of the minimum wage.
https://workerscomplawattorney.com/what-is-the-minimum-wage-in-prison/
Exactly what I was thinking. The US is literally renowned for slavery-esque prison labour, yet Trump is the one trying to put an anti-slavery tariff on other countries?
I sincerely hope other countries do call the fake-tanned paedophile out on yet another tariff related grift.
Its not even “slavery-esque”, it is just a different type of slavery more akin to indentured servitude.
For that matter, many states, ALL Red, are still at the Federal Minimum Wage of $7.25, which hasn’t been increased since 2009.
It can be argued that $7.25 in 2026 is LITERALLY a Slave Wage, especially from the perspective of a corporation or billionaire. At least the antebellum plantation slave owner was expected to provide food, shelter, and clothing for their slaves, as inadequate as it was, but 21st century plantation owners don’t even have to supply that much, and the stipend they offer to cover those expenses is far below the level it takes to provide them. Slave quarters may have been terrible, but at least they weren’t homeless.
We are already Slaves.
Don’t forget, there’s more than 800 000 imprisoned people working for the US economy as well. They get paid an average of between “13 and 52 cents an hour”, according to reporting by the Guardian and the ACLU from June 2022.
“Seven states – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas – pay nothing for the vast majority of prison work.”
Update
The latest report from the Human Rights Research Center on this came out on Tuesday, 2 June 2026.
Kaitlyn Andres, “Modern Day Slavery in the United States: Exploring Forced Labor for Prison Inmates”, Human Rights Research Center, June 2, 2026
“Most incarcerated workers (~80%) work in jobs that maintain their facilities including janitorial duties, groundskeeping, food preparation, and laundry.3 For this type of labor, inmates at federal prisons can earn between $0.12 and $0.40 per hour.” (Andres, 2026)
So much for keeping up with inflation.
In January 2025, an insightful report from the Economic Policy Institute states,
" from fighting wildfires to toiling in the kitchens of some of the country’s most popular food franchises, incarcerated workers perform vital functions across the United States and produce billions of dollars in value… Incarcerated labor is rooted in slavery and bears an especially striking resemblance in the South." (Mast, 2025)
Now add the 60 000 immigrants, migrants, and refugees kidnapped and imprisoned by ICE since 2025.
“Tens of thousands of detainees participate in the VWP because it is their only available source of income while in detention and they are often coerced into participating or threatened with retaliation if they refuse to participate.”
“for-profit companies running America’s immigration centers are permitted to put immigrant detainees to work for just $1 a day, based on a 1950s era law.” (Pasternak, 2026)
So, basically, this horseshit tariff is pretty rich coming out of anyone in this administration.
There are more slaves today than at anytime in history. 50 million to be precise. If you want to add underemployed to this as well (often referred to as wage slaves) that would be closer to 550 million.
We are slaves to capitalism on a planet that is dying from pollution. We won’t stop or even recognize we have lost around a billion lives to pollution in the last 50 years.
Ironic that one of the worst “first world” countries for worker protections is accusing others of not preventing forced labor.
Every fucking day people are forced to work in the US, essentially slaves to the corporation. As a decision between work for a pittance or starve is no decision.
American prisoners are legal slaves
And if they aren’t paying slave prison workers in our own country, we’re importing goods from all over the world, built with slave labor. Having a tariff on those goods is simply forcing the company to give the American government the money they should have paid their workers, but it doesn’t help the workers at all.
America is not first world. Never has been without universal health care, which is only reserved for first world countries.
It is by the very definition of the term. It is just that “first world” doesn’t mean what people think it does and isn’t necessarily even good.
Yes originally 1st world was US/nato aligned, while 2nd was the USSR aligned, third world unaffiliated. It hasn’t been used like that for the longest time though.
I mean, it never really officially changed, the term just started broadly bring used as “first world” == good and modern and “third world” == shitty and backwards by people that didn’t know what it actually meant.
I always wondered what 2nd World was, I didn’t know it had a Soviet connection. I speculated that first world was basically nuclear countries, and second world was non-nuclear countries, and third world are all the poor countries.
Pretty simplistic, I know.
That is what we all thought. I only learned the distinction like 5 or more years back. I thought the same, and had never heard 2nd world used in a sentence.
If you are from America you shouldn’t talk so lightly about slavery and workforce exploitation.
Canadiens don’t talk lightly about slavery
Does this mean the US is going to stop paying prisoners pennies an hour for their work?
Sure, right after they start paying minimum wage workers more.
“And it just goes to show how the world’s on its head when a left-wing Labor prime minister is trying to convince a right-wing Republican president that free trade is actually the right way to go,” Mr Hockey said.
Trump’s not really “right wing”. He’s an autocrat with zero political philosophy other than his instinct. Nothing is thought out and his policies are based on personal feelings rather than some idea about what is best for society.
That said his instincts (or rather prejudices) align most closely to the Republicans, mostly due to the Republicans spending every year since Nixon more closely aligning themselves with racists and Christian nationalists (aka Nazis).
de wat
de fucking WAT TARIFFS???Let me out! LET ME OUTTTTTTT!!!
If you just read the headline, it sounds like Albanese must be pro-slavery.
