News that the US president, Donald Trump, was going to place a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminium imports in to the US came as it generally does with such things – out of the blue, with no reasoning, and little to no understanding of whether Trump even knows what he is doing.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on the way to the Super Bowl, Trump talked about “reciprocal” tariffs. As an aside he said that “we’ll also be announcing steel tariffs on Monday” and when asked who they would affect he said “everyone”. When further asked about aluminium he replied “aluminium too” (because hey why bother to mention that upfront?).

The headlines went crazy and we saw reports here of how $15bn was “wiped from the Australian share market” in the first hour of trading. That sounds like a lot until you realise it meant only about a 0.5% fall and most of it was recovered soon after.

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........

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