Hello and welcome to US servitude day, where everyone becomes convinced that Donald Trump applying tariffs to goods his nation imports to prove a non-existence points somehow means we all just have to kowtow to him a little harder.

Trump is calling it ‘liberation’ day. The announcements will start coming in around 7am Australian time and there are some feverish fingers on keyboards and very agitated voices already.

So first, let’s take a look at what Australia exports to the United States, and what could therefore have tariffs applied to it under whatever Trump’s administration announces.

Here are the top 12 exports to the US, according to Trading Economics

It is pharmaceutical products which have most people worried, given the issues American drug giants have had with Australia’s PBS (which subsidises the cost of certain medicines in Australia) over the years.

But the Trump administration have also had issues with Australia’s biosecurity conditions for meat and poultry imports, as well as the News Media Bargaining Code (which has the tech bro oligarchs all up in arms). There is sort of a unity ticket between Albanese and Dutton on not compromising on those three areas, given the importance of the PBS and Australia’s own agricultural industry. The News Media Bargaining Code is probably one of the only areas where Murdoch diverges from Trump on policies, mostly because News Corp is a beneficiary. So there is some united rah-rah, although that hasn’t stopped Dutton from attacking Albanese over Australia being included in the global tariff assault Trump is inflicting on friend and foe alike – even though there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what he is doing.

Australia imports much more from the US than it exports. We are, as they say in the global economic game, in a trade deficit with the United States and have been since Harry S Truman was president.

How much is this going to matter? Well it matters that Australia’s “exceptional friend” the United States is applying trade tariffs to allies, which has all the hallmarks of starting a global trade war, because of ideological issues he has with free trade and the belief that no one can move without America.

But as has been pointed out time and time again, nations have begun looking elsewhere for their trade arrangements pretty much since the first Trump presidency, when he first went on a tariff bender, and that has seen China (the original target of Trump’s tariffs) benefit. In fact, trade started to deviate away from the US during the global financial crisis, when American markets weren’t looking too crash hot and many nations have found other homes for their products (Mexico being an exception).

So again, it is more about the wider issues of what does this mean for Australia’s relationship with the US, given the strategic ties governments from both the Coalition and Labor have made with the US and how our leaders now handle that (and everything else that is coming) given the Trump take over of American institutions and increasing authoritarian crack downs on the US population?

We probably won’t get the answers we should today, but we should hope that we at least start getting the questions.

You’ve got the entire Australia Institute brains trust with you to help guide you through the day – and me, Amy Remeikis at the helm. It is going to be at least a six coffee day. And it’s Thursday. The worst day of the week even without all of this.

May Dolly help us all.

Ready? Let’s get into it.