Defence minister Richard Marles is asked whether China and Australia will be working more closely in opposition to the trade policies of the United States.

He says:

Well, no, and it’s about pursuing Australia’s national interests, not about making common calls with China. So we’re not doing that. But we are focused on building markets and diversifying our trade, as I said. We have done a lot more in South-East Asia, for example, with countries like Indonesia which is, you know, a massive market that’s going to grow right next to us. We’re about to sign a new trade agreement with India which is the biggest country in the world now.

With every done a trade agreement with the UAE which is the gateway to the Middle East, an important market for Australia.

We have doubled our trade with the UK over the last three years. So we’re focused on diversifying our trade and, yes, we stabilised our relationship with China and that’s a good thing, but fundamentally what we’re doing is diversifying our trade around the world and building Australia’s economic resilience.

That’s really, you know, been the lesson, not just in the last couple of weeks, but really over the last five or 10 years about the importance of making sure that we have got strong diversified trade around the world and that’s our