Australia's Trade

Make or break Trade matters haven’t made much of an impact in Australia’s election campaign, not surprisingly overshadowed by Solomon Islands in the foreign affairs debate and now interest rate rises in the domestic debate. The Labor Opposition stepped up the rhetoric at its campaign launch

There can be little doubt that the conduct of Australian trade policy will become more complex and challenging for the foreseeable future. Two trends are salient. First, with the deterioration in global geopolitical circumstances, trade policy and foreign and strategic policy have increasingly

Waiting line China is now the top export and import partner for 12 of the other 20 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group and a top one-way partner for five others. The US score on this measuring stick is two and one. This is one very basic way of seeing how China’s bid

New chapter It may not have been intended, but a map deep inside last week’s federal budget papers seems to sum up the Australian government’s economic diplomacy strategy: preparing for life after China. While it is titled “top export destinations”, arrows zoom to all major trading

Twenty-four crew members of the Al Messilah, a livestock carrier under Kuwaiti flag, tested positive last week for Covid-19 at Fremantle Port in Western Australia. They are among the few cases where maritime crews have tested positive.   Despite assumptions that ships are an especially

Albert Einstein once said that “in the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity”. For an open trading nation like Australia, the pandemic is an unparalleled crisis. The nation is facing its worst downturn since the Great Depression, along with recessions in key trading partners, severe

Multilateralism lives With European leaders having just spent five days in close-contact negotiations in Brussels and now Australia’s first offshore ministerial visit for almost five months to Washington, a post-Covid diplomatic agenda is tentatively taking shape. Just what Covid 19 might

China’s barley tariffs have thrust the challenges of trade into the headlines with a prominence rarely seen in the popular Australian media. Although a crucial basis of national prosperity, the “trade” side of Australia’s international engagement has seemingly always had a lower profile than

Empty bench It has been one of the most forecast developments in geo-economics, but the World Trade Organisation is about to finally suffer the crippling blow of its appeals process coming to a halt. On 11 December, the trade court will no longer have enough judges to issue the binding rulings that

Drought is an unavoidable hazard of farming in Australia. As the economic pressure mounts from the current drought in northern New South Wales and Queensland, there is increasing stress on farmers in the region, including in the dairy industry. The federal government has stepped in with

This is the second in a three-part series on the future of world trade from a global (part 1), Asia Pacific (part 2) and Australian (part 3) perspective. The toughest message free marketeers have to get across is that encouraging others to open markets is not as important ensuring our economy is

Buying friends The debate over Australia’s most valuable economic partners hit fever pitch this month with new arguments over old measuring sticks for an increasingly contested aspect of international relations. There is no absolute way of resolving this debate which involves value judgements