News of 'the pause' came right in the middle of Tánaiste Simon Harris' live interview with RTÉ's Six One News yesterday.
He was supposed to be telling us about the meeting he had had earlier that morning with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who had invited him to Washington DC for a rapid-fire meeting.
But that meeting was suddenly postponed yesterday morning and then pushed back to yesterday afternoon.
So Mr Harris was live (again) on the Nine News telling us some of what had just transpired in that meeting.
Later, we learned that the reason his meeting with Mr Lutnick was delayed was because the US President had decided first thing yesterday morning to announce a tariff pause.
Mr Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were in the Oval Office with the president when he announced the pause, setting off a buying frenzy on the stock markets, and easing back of bond yields, and a rise in oil prices as recession fears eased a bit.
As excuses not to meet the Tánaiste go, it's not a bad one.
Mr Lutnick made up for it in the afternoon with a meeting described as "timely, valuable and substantive", by Mr Harris, who relayed the details to EU Commission Vice President and Trade negotiator Maroš Šefčovič back in Brussels - particularly the outcome of a discussion on the pharmaceutical sector.
That pause couldn't have come at a better moment.
It's been a week-long rollercoaster since Donald Trump announced his "reciprocal tariffs" plan in the Rose Garden of the White House, with chaos on equity markets, bond markets, customs brokers and shipping agents.
Trouble is, every rollercoaster has a pause - at least one. A built-in moment of respite before shooting off again on a terrifying series of climbs, dips and turns. This wild ride is far from over, just so you know.
But let's do what we are supposed to do during a pause like this: Relish it. Feel the relief, draw breath, realise you are not dead. Then make ready for more.
Or if you are a trade negotiator, jump in with your offers and see if the Americans bite.
Ninety days does not seem like much time to remake the world trade order. And trying to play out a trade negotiation with 75 countries, according to the Treasury Secretary, will stretch the US civil service to its outermost limits and there is already talk of outsourcing some negotiations to law firms.
Mr Lutnick later told CNBC he expects to be very busy negotiating deals along with Mr Bessent, and that the 90-day period will indeed be very challenging.
And it's not simply the number of countries to strike a deal with, it's the complexity and scale of the bigger players.
The big two of America's international trade, the European Union and China, present vastly bigger challenges because of their sheer size. The EU-US economic relationship is the biggest on the planet, and highly valuable to both sides.
There is a big trade surplus in goods in favour of the EU, but there is a big surplus in the trade in services (including digital services) in favour of the US. That’s why the EU says the trade gap is a lot smaller than the US side claims and has offered to close a lot of it by buying US energy instead of Russian energy.
President Trump said the same at the start of the week, so the big part of the deal is already out there.
As for other detail issues - the difficult ones - that govern market access, much work has already been done during the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations of more than a decade ago, and trade experts on both sides of the Atlantic keep brushing up their options just in case.
So, they are not starting from scratch. With political will, a lot could be done in three months. Would it be enough to hold EU red lines, and still enable Donald Trump to declare victory? Time will tell.
Remember, trade deals are political deals. Sure, lots of technocrats are involved, but at the end of the day, the big calls have to be taken by politicians and they have to be comfortable with the calculus.
The US-China relationship is much more adversarial. Both sides can do the other serious damage. The very large dependence that US industry has developed on Chinese manufacturing is a strategic weakness for the United States - one it wants to move away from, but which could blow up in its face if this dispute gets really nasty.
The Chinese, on the other hand, need the US market to keep its own economy on the rails.
The Americans calculate that as they are the buyer, and the Chinese the seller, they have the upper hand in this negotiation.
The rapid ramping up of tariffs and counter tariffs makes a negotiated outcome look further away.
Heading off a bad trade war is going to take a lot of effort and human resources on both sides.
And lurking in the background is the prospect of an actual war over Taiwan if China feels badly humiliated or seriously threatened.
The outcome of this one looks a lot more like a major reshaping of the global trading system and the potential for damage looks a lot higher, as the ideological and political distance between the two sides is much greater.
But that's assuming everything goes smoothly. It won't. This is a pause on a rollercoaster ride, remember?
And the tariffs haven't gone away. There is still a general 10% tariff on all goods imported to the US - except for China, where the tariff is now 125%.
Stock markets roar back, but dead cats also bounce.
Sectoral tariffs are still in place - those steel and aluminium tariffs the Americans re-introduced are still there, as are the 25% tariffs on imported automobiles and components.
And the president is still saying he plans on a "major tariff" on the pharmaceutical sector, separate to the "reciprocal tariff".
Treasury Secretary Bessent was clear that the tariff levels announced last week were maximums (assuming countries didn't retaliate), and the 10% "floor" level could be open for negotiation now.
So, in his view, throwing a big rock into the world trade pond has paid off, because so many countries say they are now ready to negotiate quickly to improve trade for the US in their markets, to keep access to the US market.
"They’re all kissing my ass," was Donald Trump's more colourful take on current developments in international trade diplomacy.
And even if the tariffs were to settle long term at the new 10% rate, the Tánaiste’s view is quite clear.
"10% tariffs still aren't good; tariffs are bad, so we need to be cautious in relation to this," he said.
So, we are not out of the woods yet. Plenty of hard talking and deal making to come.
But for the first time we get to see something of the route ahead - unless there is another switch of track, and we are pitched back onto a runaway rollercoaster.
Read more:
Trump announces 90-day pause, increases China tariff
Trump buckles in face of bond market pressure
