Sky News
AHRON YOUNG: Live to New York. We're joined by the Trade and Tourism Minister Steve Ciobo who has just arrived there. Steve thanks so much for your time.
STEVEN CIOBO: A pleasure. Good to be with you.
AHRON YOUNG: Well I want to start with Trump's inauguration speech. What did you make of it where he put the world on notice that this is a new United States, particularly when it comes to trade and its trading partners?
STEVEN CIOBO: Well President Trump's speech was certainly one which has garnered a lot of headlines around the world. It was a speech that held true to the platform that he was elected upon. It's a speech that I think many Australians, many Americans obviously, would be able to have clear insight into the direction that President Trump wants to take the United States over the next four years.
AHRON YOUNG: You met this week at the World Economic Forum with Japan, China, Canada rather, Mexico, Singapore, Malaysia about alternatives to the TPP. What alternatives are there? What did you discuss?
STEVEN CIOBO: Look it's really important that we do capture the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As Australia, we are a trade-exposed nation. We, of course, have a very large proportion of our economy about jobs that are reliant upon opening up trade opportunities, export opportunities for Australians goods and services. And one of the ways we can do that is through the TPP. So I made sure I had conversations this past week with, including Canada, Mexico, with Singapore, with Japan, with New Zealand, to look at the opportunities to take the TPP forward even if it does not include the United States.
AHRON YOUNG: We know, of course, Republicans now control both houses. What's your purpose of the trip to the United States? You're hoping to meet with the Administration? Maybe some of those Congressmen and Senators?
STEVEN CIOBO: It's really important to build bridges with a new Administration as soon as possible. I've been having conversations with our Ambassador here, Joe Hockey who's been doing an outstanding job building strong linkages to the Trump Administration. It's also our G'Day USA programme that we're going to be running here in the United States which sees us roll out knowledge about Australia, Australian produce, Australian goods, of course, Australian services as well, the benefits of tourism – all of these which generate jobs in Australia, generate export income for Australia, and that's why I'm here.
AHRON YOUNG: We hear Donald Trump talking over and over about America First. What do you interpret that as meaning? How difficult will it be for the new president to achieve this idea of America First and American products come first – for example look at say Apple – a company which is an American company but makes most of its products in China – what will trade mean for an organisation like that?
STEVEN CIOBO: Well I can't stress enough how important trade is for Australia. It's worth roughly $670 billion a year to Australia and of course we rely upon being able to have good access to markets like Korea – like Japan, like China, as well as the United States and others. That's one of the reasons why I'm focused on making sure that we can capture the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Now I've been very concerned to see that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party are once again moving away from the promotion of export deals and the benefits of trade. We saw the Labor Party do this just prior to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement coming into place – now this is an agreement that's yielding big dividends for Australia – record exports of wine, record exports of Australian products into China and I think it's a great shame that the Labor Party and Bill Shorten are so weak that they're prepared to walk away from Labor's legacy, which they've shared with the Coalition historically on trade.
AHRON YOUNG: Well Jason Clare of course says the TPP is dead – we seem to be opening our trade ties in Asia with Japan, the free trade agreements etcetera, at a time when our biggest strategic ally seems to now want to close them – is Australia maybe caught in the middle here?
STEVEN CIOBO: Well we're not caught in the middle. I'm very focused upon making sure that we deliver great outcomes for Australian exporters. That's why the Coalition has put such a strong focus on building export markets like South Korea, like Japan, and like China. It's another reason why we cannot walk away from the great deal that we've be able to put together to get access to new markets like Mexico, we've got a FTA – a free trade agreement with Chile, but we've got also potential now to build on that with for example Peru, with possibly Vietnam and other countries as well. That's what we need to capture. And for Jason Clare, Bill Shorten and the Labor Party to just walk away from the benefits of exports for Australia is for the Labor Party to turn their back on the jobs that are created from exports, from the economic growth that's created for exports, and that's the reason why you see the Labor Party quite divided on this. I mean, Kim Beazley was in the media only on Friday encouraging Bill Shorten to grow a spine and to stand up and support the TPP but we see that Bill Shorten is beholden to the union movement and unfortunately he's become very weak.
AHRON YOUNG: You're focusing on Labor here, but the real question, of course, is about Donald Trump when it comes to the TPP. Do you think it's about compromise? Do you think it's maybe worth holding off for a few years so that Donald Trump can bed down his presidency, perhaps he can be shown the benefits, as you say of the TPP, and then maybe we can revisit it and change his mind?
STEVEN CIOBO: Well we want to keep building consensus for the TPP –