The COVID-19 pandemic has had severe repercussions on world trade. 2020 had a precipitous decline in the volume of international trade, while 2021 saw a significant rebound. Despite the fact that global trade flows are now higher than pre-pandemic levels, the impacts of trade vary widely across different goods, services, and trading partners. In this report, we surveyed 361 Australian international firms in 2021. The focus was on the firms’ strategic responses to identifying the firms' strategic changes in international markets, their perceptions of the external environment and firm performance to date. Data from these surveys enabled the analysis of the changes in the number of foreign subsidiaries, employees, assets, research and development (R&D) expenditure and product innovation pre and during the pandemic as indicators of different strategic responses to crises. To analyse the external environment, firms were asked to evaluate the level of competition and dynamism within their industry, the support they received from the government and the economic freedom in Australia. The results of the investigation showed changes in the number of foreign subsidiaries, employee numbers, assets, number of products, and R%D expenditure. It can be observed that 21.6% of the firms increased the number of foreign subsidiaries while 46.5% reduced the number of employees. In terms of assets, the majority of the businesses did not change the assets (39.6%) and 25.1% increased them. The R&D expenditure did not change in 42.4% of the firms surveyed; however, 33.9% of them decreased their R&D outlay. It is interesting to observe that 26.9% of the firms developed new products in contrast to 34% of the firms reducing the number of products while 39.1% of the firms maintained the same number of products. 82% of the firms surveyed decided to exit a foreign country due to unfavourable policies in that country even though it was a strategically significant location before the pandemic. The analysis of the survey data concluded that firms in different sectors responded through four broad strategies: 1) retrenchment, 2) persevering, 3) innovating, 4) exit. Based on this research, the following report provides recommendations for policymakers and industry practitioners. The key recommendations for policymakers include: • Providing financial support to help with business continuity, but more importantly funding of opportunities for innovation with: o product/service innovation, o process innovation and o business model innovation. • Creating a scheme of different grants for businesses in certain industries, or tax breaks related to research and innovation. The key recommendations for businesses are: • Exploring options related to innovation by forming alliances with partners and stakeholders in new markets. • Seizing the opportunity to make strategies changes, create new products, services or business models, or enter new markets while others exit. • Being flexible and ready to adapt quickly to changes in the competitive and volatile market environment.