The National Foreign Trade Council has criticised the Albanese government's plan to expand the News Bargaining Incentive to include Microsoft's LinkedIn, issuing a veiled warning about how Donald Trump might respond (The Guardian).

The NFTC said it was 'disappointed' at Australia's move to widen the scope of the scheme amid trade tensions including newly increased tariffs on Australian goods. Tiffany Smith, the council's vice-president of global trade policy, said Australia continues to push forward with a news bargaining incentive covering an even broader spectrum of US companies. The NFTC's membership rolls include Meta, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, Samsung, BP, Coca-Cola, Ford, Toyota, Shell and Visa. That is a lot of corporate heft lined up against a levy designed to funnel money to Australian newsrooms.

The proposed News Bargaining Incentive would require tech giants to compensate media outlets for news on their platforms, either through making commercial deals or paying a higher levy. The scheme initially included Google, TikTok and Meta. Under the expanded plan, big tech platforms must make at least six individual deals with news publishers, up from four previously, to avoid paying the levy.

Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said Australian media would expect to receive $200 million to $250 million in total under the arrangements. That figure matches the amount raised under the former News Media Bargaining Code, legislated by the Coalition around half a decade earlier, which only included Meta and Google.

The NFTC's intervention is not new. The council published a statement on 30 April 2026 titled 'NFTC Calls on Australia to Drop Coercive News Media Bargaining Incentive Proposal', describing the legislation as a 'coercive and discriminatory policy that primarily targets large U.S.' companies (NFTC). The council also lodged a submission to Australia's News Bargaining Incentive consultation on 19 December 2025.

The mechanics of the levy are straightforward. The draft bill imposes a 2.25 percent tax on the Australian revenue of the parent entities of certain 'significant' social media and news companies (NFTC submission document). Companies can avoid the charge by striking deals with publishers. The government is also set to tweak the proposed incentive to better support small and regional publishers (Nine).

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said he would seek to raise the issue of tariffs with US President Donald Trump (Reuters). That conversation now carries an additional dimension, with the NFTC's warning landing in the middle of an already strained trade relationship.

Not everyone thinks the government is being bold enough. Former ACCC chair Rod Sims said the government was not doing enough to support news and hoped it would move on the AI platform issue.

The broader context here matters for anyone tracking the intersection of media policy and trade diplomacy. The NFTC's membership spans tech, automotive, energy and consumer goods companies. When that coalition describes an Australian policy as 'coercive and discriminatory' and references the sitting US president, the implied leverage is trade-related. Australia has form in this space. The original News Media Bargaining Code faced threats from Meta and Google to pull services from Australia before they ultimately cut commercial deals. The difference now is that the dispute is being framed not just as a regulatory matter between Canberra and Silicon Valley but as a bilateral trade issue involving Washington.

The government's headline revenue figure, $200 million to $250 million, is the same ballpark the Coalition's code produced when it covered only two platforms. Expanding the scheme to capture more companies while targeting the same aggregate return suggests the government is spreading the burden rather than significantly growing the pool. That will be cold comfort to publishers who argue the original code undervalued news content. Sims's call for action on AI platforms signals that the next front in this fight is already visible, even if the government has not yet moved on it.

For the NFTC's part, the strategy appears to be escalation through official channels and public statements rather than direct retaliation. Smith's reference to a 'broader spectrum of US companies' is carefully constructed to cast the incentive as a widening tax grab rather than a targeted media policy. Whether that framing gains traction in Washington depends on how the Trump administration reads its own trade interests. Albanese's plan to raise tariffs with Trump directly now intersects with a US corporate lobby urging the White House to pressure Canberra over the same basket of issues.

The government faces competing pressures from three directions. US trade bodies want the scheme scrapped. Former regulators want it broader and tougher. Small and regional publishers want a bigger share of whatever money flows. The $250 million ceiling, if that is what it turns out to be, will have to stretch further than the original code's did, across more platforms and more claimants. How Mulino and the Treasury design the distribution mechanism will determine whether this policy holds together or simply replicates the old code's shortcomings at a larger scale.