Portfolio — 18 May 2026

Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell announced back-to-back bilateral engagements with Australia's two largest trading partners, signalling an intensive phase of ministerial-level economic diplomacy [TA-260518-trade-e0f30fcb642e]. He will travel to Japan to attend the sixth Australia-Japan Ministerial Economic Dialogue alongside Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ryosei Akazawa, with the visit explicitly framed around energy and economic security outcomes following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's recent visit to Australia [TA-260518-trade-e0f30fcb642e].

The energy dimension is notable: its presence in both the Japan and China agendas points to a consistent portfolio emphasis on securing supply-side arrangements with major partners, spanning both Climate and Energy adjacencies. From Japan, Farrell travels to Suzhou, China, for his 14th meeting with Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao at the 18th Joint Ministerial Economic Commission — the frequency of those bilateral contacts reflects the depth of the re-engaged Australia-China trade relationship [TA-260518-trade-e0f30fcb642e].

The PM media release puts two-way goods and services trade with China at $326 billion in 2025, a figure Farrell deployed to anchor the economic stakes of the commission [TA-260518-trade-e0f30fcb642e]. The Suzhou visit also positions Farrell at the APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting, where he will represent Australia alongside the bloc's 21 economies — a grouping the release notes accounts for roughly 73 percent of Australia's total trade in goods and services [TA-260518-trade-e0f30fcb642e].

His reaffirmation of commitment to a rules-based trading order, stated in the same release, provides the normative frame across both bilateral and multilateral settings [TA-260518-trade-e0f30fcb642e]. The portfolio's approach across this travel window is to pursue stronger trade, investment, and energy-security ties with both Japan and China through direct ministerial engagement and APEC-level multilateral presence simultaneously — a dual-track strategy with both bilateral and regional dimensions running in parallel [TA-260518-trade-e0f30fcb642e].