Seeing as how both countries have similar standards of living and wages and food quality, it seems like a TRUE “free trade” deal should be very brief.
Unfortunately, it seems like Australia has a VAT/GST that is added to American imports and a VAT/GST credit that is issued to Australian exports to America. Is that true ?
A system like that would make Aussie goods cheaper in America than they are at home and American goods more expensive in OZ than they are in America. VATs make a mockery of “low tariffs” and “free trade” agreements.
What agricultural products are you referring to ? Lamb and certain fish ? What else ? What sort of barrier to US markets exist ?
Aussie wine fruit vegies and minerals*** in addition to the lamb. Kangaroo meat is tasty too. IP wise they have some great TV shows. Many would do very well here. They are highly culturally compatible with us. They even have hillbilly culture which they call Bogans.
(And their women are a wild bunch... send some over)
*** Including very very important stuff for electronics, easy to get to and only China produces those right now.
Looks to me like it revolves around wool. We allow wool and wool cloth in, but fabricated wool products like a shirt have heavy tariffs attached.
If you want a new wool shirt, you will have to pay big bucks. You can find heavy cotton shirts that are lined and insulated and very cheap because they are made in asia
This issue goes back many years as I recall because I grew up in the wool capital of the US(SW TEX) and we had many wool warehouses there.