Senator Matt Canavan has doubled down on his push to sanction China over the escalating trade tensions.

Chinese state media is reporting Beijing has instructed power plants not to buy Australian coal.

It comes after Senator Canavan yesterday proposed levies on iron ore exports as a way to compensate for money lost through China-imposed trade tariffs.

“There’s only one language that bullies understand and that’s to stand up to them,” he told Luke Grant.

“It’s clear that China is trying to bully and threaten Australia to change our polices on things like not allowing a Chinese company Huawei to build our 5G network, policies like keeping foreign interference out of politics.

“There’s one product China hasn’t taken action on and that’s iron ore, because they need it, they need so much of our iron ore to power their steel mills.

“We’ve got a very strong position there, I think we should make it clear, every time China takes action like this we jack up the levy on iron ore.”

Click PLAY below to hear the full interview

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