Australia’s 28th prime minister reflects on the practicalities of securing freer trade agreements in his time and what’s changed in today’s more geopolitically fraught world. There are insights into how Australia sealed agreements with its main Indo-Pacific partners in the context of belief in freer trade to build all-round prosperity. Still, prosperity is not the sole consideration of statecraft. Because China uses trade to advance strategic objectives, universally freer trade is not always in the West’s best interests and must be pursued in ways that don’t compromise other important national objectives like maintaining an adequate military industrial base. Western nations need not completely decouple from China but should be vigilant about over dependence in critical industries. The West should forge deeper trade ties with countries, such as India, that are broadly like-minded, to counter the rising arc of autocracy.