FCA Proposes a Merger with Renault

One free trade deal in particular with Thailand(TAFTA) signed in 2005, was especially bad for potential Australian truck production jobs since most of the small trucks sold in Australia are produced in Thailand like the Toyota Hilux, Holden Colorado, Isuzu D-max, Ford Ranger, Mazda BT-50, and Nissan Navara. Australia is a big enough auto market to apply high tariffs on their auto imports to protect domestic jobs without giving into high subsidies, but their hands were tied once they signed a free trade deal that lasts for decades with other Asian countries. Australia had to shell out more and more subsidies to get them to stay until it was no longer profitable.

There were no " truck" production jobs before the TAFTA was signed, all these vehicles were produced in Thailand. It is when the US companies were not given subsidies they pulled out, nothing to do with tariffs