Collateral damage – and it’s not only from the (unlikely) risk of a world-wide protectionist tariff war. ‘Friendly (economic) fire’ will unintentionally hit Australia if US President Donald Trump’s justifiable assault on untenable Chinese trading practices is not resolved speedily; continuing uncertainty kills business confidence. All this has little to do with the nonsensical charade of negotiations to protect Australia from Trump’s political stunt of making a show of imposing tariffs (for national security) on the $30 billion of US imports of steel and aluminium – and then exempting the ‘friends and allies’ who supply most of it.