The Australian Financial Review reports that a review of Australia's intelligence agencies has urged beefing up the bureaucracy, led by Treasury, with a new focus on protecting Australia’s economic security at a time when Chinese and Western economies are diverging, protectionism and coercion are on the rise and supply chains vulnerable.
John Kunkel, senior economics adviser at USSC, welcomed the focus on economic security, saying the liberal international order had begun fracturing a decade ago and Donald Trump’s use of tariffs was reshaping global trade.