acerbate

Fires ravaging huge swaths of countryside only acerbate the climate crisis, he said.

Without a trade deal, it would have acerbated chaos at the border where checks on goods will have to be increased since Britain is fully out of the 27-nation bloc.

Scientists insist that climate change has acerbated already ripe conditions for calamitous fires, while critics have contended that such devastation is nothing new to the Australian landscape.

"Instead of advancing the United States' interests, politicising trade will only acerbate the country's economic woes, and poison the overall China-US relationship," it said.

"But instead of advancing the United States' interests, politicising trade will only acerbate the country's economic woes, and poison the overall China-U.S. relationship."