Was that the shortest trade war ever, or an omen of what’s to come? And did America’s neighbours, Canada and Mexico, roll U.S. President Donald Trump when they essentially agreed to do what they had already been doing in return for the president suspending his threat of 25 per cent tariffs on goods imported from their countries?

Whatever the truth of what we just witnessed, we’ve at least temporarily averted an expensive economic crisis that could have crippled the economies of all three countries.