Farrell spurns trade war on China

Canberra/Jakarta – Trade Minister Don Farrell has issued a rare rebuff to Washington, declaring Australia will resist pressure from the Trump administration to gang up on Beijing over trade, because China is a substantially larger buyer of Australian exports.

As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese threw his backing behind Indonesia’s bid to join the Trans-Pacific free trade pact to help counter the global chaos created by US President Donald Trump’s trade war, Farrell also confirmed the government was not rushing to seek relief from US tariffs from the White House.

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The Trump administration regards tariffs as a way to “rebalance” global trade flows away from China, and is looking at allies and trading partners to support those efforts, including by using access to US markets as an incentive.

But Farrell indicated the government is reluctant to do so, because Australia’s export trade with China is worth much more than trade with the US. Official data shows exports to China were worth $212 billion in 2023–24, compared to $37 billion to the US.

“China is our largest trading partner. Chinese trade is almost 10 times more valuable to Australia,” Farrell said.

“We don’t want to do less business with China, we want to do more business with China.”

“We’ll make decisions about how we continue to engage with China based on our national interests and not on what the Americans may or may not want.”

Albanese is expected to have his first face-to-face meeting with Trump next month. If it does not happen this weekend at the papal inauguration in Rome…

Source: The Australia Financial Review; Andrew Tillett and Ronald Mizen