Australian aluminium manufacturers brace for impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs

On the factory floor of an aluminium plant in Melbourne’s north, the noise of a massive extrusion press is deafening. It is the sound of what the director of Australia’s largest aluminium manufacturing company, Capril Aluminium, said is one of the country’s most important industries. “Aluminium is one of Australia’s largest industries, and it’s Australia’s largest manufactured export in terms of dollars, so it’s very, very important to the Australian economy,” Capril’s director Tony Dragicevich said. But uncertainty has filtered down supply chains and production lines across Australia’s $18 billion aluminium industry. The AWU’s Tom Mortimer says all of Australia’s…