As we end the first week of living with the Trump administration’s tariffs, markets unstable and mostly negative.

Tuesday had seen some recovery among stock markets worldwide, following days of heavy losses. Then Donald Trump announced an increased 108% tariff on China, and markets have quickly reversed again. It’s all very unsettling.

Good news had arrived from Brussels on Tuesday, with the news that dairy and spirits were among the goods removed from the EU’s list of US products that would experience retaliatory increased tariffs.

What happens next probably depends on Donald Trump’s next move, and you might as well be trying to predict the weather in Ireland as you would gauge the humour of the president of the United States.

Tánaiste Simon Harris suggested that a deal be done that will see zero tariffs in either direction between the EU and the US.

That might be hard to achieve in practice for food commodities, as Donald Trump sees the EU’s ban on hormone beef and genetically modified (GM) crops as a tariff. There is no possibility of the EU removing the ban on hormone-treated beef, or indeed milk.

Most GM events are approved by the EU over time, allowing the importation of US and South American maize and soya grown using approved GM events. It’s actually European tillage farmers who are at a trading disadvantage from the GMO ban, but try telling that to Donald Trump.

The fall in oil prices might be good news too, as it should see fuel and nitrogen prices fall. Silage contractors could do with cheaper diesel, but will a fertiliser price fall come in time for the peak market over the coming weeks?

US farmers are at least as worried as their EU counterparts. Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican Party colleague of Donald Trump, said farmers in his state of North Carolina are “very worried”.

He specifically referred to China, a key export market for US pork, putting retaliatory tariffs in place.

“Now we know [US] pork’s going to be 34% more expensive [in China],” he said. Soyabean and grain growers are also worried.

Tillis is one of seven Republican senators who have proposed legislation that would see Trump’s tariffs lapse after 60 days unless Congress passed a joint resolution of approval.

That would mean a handful of Republicans in both houses would hold the fate of tariffs in their hands, as their majority is slight in the Senate and wafer-thin in the House of Representatives.

Not a single Democrat will vote in support of Trump’s tariffs.

We can only watch and hope the grown-ups in the room step up.