Australia must not cede to Trump on trade

Advertisement

The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), which came into force in 2005, was a terrible deal for Australia that benefited the US at our expense.

The Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University (ANU) investigated AUSFTA and found that, a decade after its signing, the deal had diverted more trade than it generated.

According to Peter Drysdale of ANU, “Australia alone has suffered trade losses [from AUSFTA] the annual equivalent of the current price of around 18 Japanese, German, Swedish or French submarines through this deal”.

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:
Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe
About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.