Greg Jericho has written on the Trump tariff turmoil for the Guardian, where you’ll find some sense, without the shambles:

At this point I would like to pour out a long one to the USAFTA – that glorious free trade agreement the Howard government signed with the USA, which at the time John Howard said was “an historic agreement” and that “it will add enormous long-term benefits to the Australian economy”.

“Long-term” was less than 20 years.

The Australian government might ponder such things when it rushes to talk up Aukus which the defence minister, Richard Marles, suggests “provides significant, long-term strategic benefits for all three countries”.

If a free-trade agreement is able to be ignored as a mere scrap of paper, how rock solid are agreements to deliver submarines at some vague point in the future and only when the US has decided it does not have any need for them?

The government might also ponder that given in 2023 we exported a touch over $800m in steel and aluminium to the US and last week the defence minister graciously delivered that amount to the US as part of our instalment payment for the $360bn Aukus agreement (only 450 payments to go!).

You can read more, here.