In 2021, Australia sent a message to social media giants — cough up the cash or lose access to news content.
The world-first News Media Bargaining Code proved controversial.
Meta immediately blocked access to news content for Facebook users, later back-pedalling to sign deals worth millions of dollars.
Last year, it announced it would not be renewing those deals, opting to invest the up to $200 million it was spending elsewhere.
In December, the federal government announced plans to tighten the code, unveiling an incentive tax on platforms that do not make deals.
Now the code has been name-checked in the annual US Foreign Trade Barriers report, labelled an issue for America.
As Donald Trump prepares for his personal "liberation day" and the unveiling of a fresh round of tariffs, Australia's media law could find itself caught up in a global trade war.
A radical — and controversial — bargaining chip
When it came into effect, the News Media Bargaining Code was a radical piece of media reform.
Formally titled Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2021, it passed both houses of Parliament in February 2021.
It hoped to ensure news outlets were "fairly remunerated" for their content, according to a federal government statement at the time.
Eligible news businesses that wanted to be paid for their content to appear on search engines or social media could sign up to the scheme.
The treasurer was also given the power to "designate" digital platforms, meaning deciding whether they held a significant power imbalance over publishers.
If a platform is designated, it must start negotiating with news businesses via mediation or arbitration.
That would mean platforms like Meta and Google would be powerless to an arbitrator telling them how much to pay.
The plan to make Meta pay for news has appeared to reach a stalemate over the past year.
Meta has threatened on several occasions to pull all news from Australian platforms if forced to pay, a repeat of its 2021 ban.
In the meantime, multiple Australian news companies reported job losses linked to the loss of revenue from Meta.
The tax plan announced in December could prove to be the next step in stopping tech giants from dragging their feet, making it cheaper to strike a deal than to pay the tax.
The federal government appeared to see the tax as a "backstop" to bring platforms and media outlets to the bargaining table.
But it's this extra measure that appeared to put it in the firing line for the US government.
Donald Trump's plan for more Australian tariffs remains a mystery
How US President Donald Trump plans to react when it comes to the media code remains unknown.
Mr Trump is expected to take to the White House's Rose Garden at 4pm local time (7am Thursday AEDT) to announce the latest round of tariffs.
Earlier this week, an updated list of grievances was published, offering an itemised list of everything America believed was affecting its exports globally.
The NMBC was listed beneath several requirements for trading beef, pork, poultry and fruit, as well as pharmaceutical marketing regulations.
"In December 2024, the government announced its intent to tighten the rules surrounding the Bargaining Code, including by introducing a financial penalty for designated platforms that do not reach or renew commercial agreements," the report said.
"The United States continues to monitor this issue."
The report also referenced proposed policies that would require a certain amount of Australian content to be hosted on streaming platforms.
It did not elaborate on why the code, or potential legal penalties on social media platforms, were a barrier to trade with the US government.
Professor Axel Bruns, from Queensland University of Technology's Digital Media Research Centre, said multiple platforms were looking to the Trump administration for help.
"We've seen, certainly [X owner] Elon Musk, of course, but also [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg, [Amazon executive chairman] Jeff Bezos and Sundar Pichai from Google all align themselves quite closely with the Trump administration," he said.
"[This is] essentially to seek Trump's protection from laws elsewhere in the world that affect them.
"They've only recently started to talk about Australia more, but they've done something similar in Europe, where they're not happy with the laws that require them to implement better controls … against hate and abuse.
"The platforms at the moment are in this position where they would like the Trump administration to [act] on their behalf and protect them from anything they feel is affecting them overseas."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the concerns raised in the trade report were "not up for negotiation" for the Australian government.
Other countries playing 'copycat' as potential tariffs loom
When it was first enacted, the NMBC was a world first.
Canada followed in Australia's footsteps with its own Online News Act — officially called Bill C-18 — which also required social media and search engine companies to pay local publishers.
As a result, Canadian Meta users have not had access to news on the platform for more than a year.
Other countries have taken up the code "to their detriment", Professor Bruns said.
"Canada watched very closely what we did, they did the same thing and they've borne the same consequences, more so in fact," he said.
"I certainly don't know of anywhere where it's actually worked, where the platforms actually said, 'oh yeah, we'll pay and we'll accept this law'."
"There's been a bit of copycat action … but really to their detriment, that has to be said, rather than in any successful sort of way."
According to Professor Bruns, the rest of the world is still watching Australia keenly to see how the saga plays out.
For Mr Trump and the world's tech leaders, he said, it was hard to know what they were thinking.
"Just looking at what Trump's been saying, and comparing that with what he's been doing on tariffs as well, there's been this sort of blustering," Professor Bruns said.
"There's a lot of bluff and counter-bluff still going on.
"Without wanting to stray too far out of my lane, it seems to me that this is Trump's only negotiating tactic, to be really aggressive at the start and then hope that the other side says, 'well, OK'.
"That may well be what the idea is here, that they're trying to strong-arm Australia into cancelling the [media code], into saying, 'we won't in other ways regulate you, just please don't hit us with tariffs'.
"And both government and opposition have said they're not going to give in to that kind of threat. It remains to be seen whether that's the case down the track."
