Beijing wants what Australia’s selling: Don Farrell bullish on China’s economy
Trade Minister Don Farrell says China’s $19 trillion economy is stronger than most believe, predicting rising demand for Australian exports despite global concerns.
Trade Minister Don Farrell has declared China’s economy is in much better health than many believe and that demand is going to go up for what “Australia sells”, as Donald Trump’s bid to reshape global trade against Beijing faces a serious Supreme Court threat.
Senator Farrell, in China this week to promote Australian exports, said most Australians did not understand how well the $19 trillion Chinese economy was doing and doubled down on an ambitious target to grow two-way trade with China to $400bn a year by 2030.
Speaking after attending a speech by Chinese Premier Li Qiang and the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, the senior Labor powerbroker said China’s growth trajectory carried enormous potential for Australia, despite most economists’ fears that it is slowing under the weight of a struggling housing market and the US President’s trade war.
But Mr Trump’s ability to apply tariffs at a whim came under serious pressure on Wednesday (AEDT) when the US Supreme Court questioned his administration’s defence of its signature economic policy.
Mr Li used a keynote speech on Wednesday to declare China’s economy would grow by more than 4 per cent a year until 2030, representing “new significant contributions to global growth”.
China’s growth is on track to reach its target of “about 5 per cent” in 2025, according to its official statistics, well down from the double-digit rates of recent decades. But Senator Farrell declared that when an economy of China’s size was “growing at that level of strength” then demand was “going to go up” for Australian exporters. “Now, will it be for iron ore? Or will it be for wine? Or will it be for beef? It will be for something that Australia sells,” Senator Farrell said.
The Trade Minister said in an interview in the Peace Hotel on Shanghai’s Bund that he did not think “people quite understand ... just how well the Chinese economy is doing”.
“People say, ‘Oh, well, the Chinese economy is in strife because their housing industry is in trouble’,” he said. “The Chinese economy is now worth about $19 trillion … It’s growing at 5 per cent a year So the Chinese economy is growing by almost $1 trillion each and every year And I’m told that’s an accurate figure, it’s not a manufactured figure.”
Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Thursday revealed Australia maintained a trade deficit with the US at just over $1bn in the month of September. The new figures kept Canberra’s negotiating position on tariffs with Washington in good stead.
But Mr Trump’s power to impose tariff without congressional approval could be heavily curtailed by the US Supreme Court, putting at risk his main tool aimed at rebalancing the economic world order away from China.
Several Supreme Court judge – including Republican appointees – questioned Trump administration officials about whether the US President had overstepped his authority and was infringing on the power of Congress.
The line of questioning appeared to leave White House lawyers on the back foot.
US solicitor-general John Sauer conceded that the administration’s position meant that another US president could use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to slap a 50 per cent tariff on gas-powered cars as a response to the threat of climate change – although he clarified the current President would not take such a step.
Mr Sauer also acknowledged that Mr Trump had negotiated agreements worth trillions of dollars with major trading partners, including, most recently China and that unwinding them now could “expose us to ruthless trade retaliation by far more aggressive countries and drive America from strength to failure”.
This week marked the third consecutive year that Senator Farrell has visited Shanghai during th CIIE, the country’s most politically important trade show.
Australia’s representation at this year’s event reached a record 256 Australian businesses, following some encouragement from the government.
At last year’s trade show, Senator Farrell said Australia’s two-way trade with China could grow to $400bn Instead, a fall in the iron ore price caused two-way trade fall to $312bn in 2024 down from $327bn in 2023 Despite the recent drop, Senator Farrell said he remained bullish about the outlook. “I’m optimistic that that figure of $400bn is achievable before the end of the decade,” he told The Australian.
On Tuesday night, the Trade Minister met his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao for the 12th time. At the “very very warm meeting”, Senator Farrell gave the Chinese Commerce Minister a bottle of his “Godfather” range of South Australian red wines, while Mr Wang gave his Australian counterpart a Chinese-made, AI-powered simultaneous translation device.
Senator Farrell said there was now “a sense of ease” about the trade relationship with China, a dramatic change from the state of affairs the Albanese government inherited in 2022 when Beijing had imposed embargoes on Australian exports previously worth $20bn a year.
Senator Farrell said he no longer felt “the same pressure” he did when trade blockages were imposed on Australian barley, wine, beef and lobsters. “There’s a sense of ease …. It’s an easier relationship to progress now that that’s off the table,” he said.
Most of the Australian businesses displaying at this year’s CIIE were in the trade fair’s food and agriculture hall, including kombucha producer Remedy, beef exporter JBS, the nation’s most China-loving fruit lobby Avocados Australia and winemaker Auswan.
But the nation’s two biggest exporters to China, miners BHP and Rio Tinto, were off in the “intelligent industry” hall.
BHP’s attendance came in the wake of reports about the miner’s hardball negotiations with Beijing’s state-owned resources buyer China Mineral Resources Group.
When The Australian visited the stall on Wednesday, the vice-mayor of Shenzhen had dropped by with his entourage, a sign that the Big Australian was not on an all-government black list.
The Trade Minister said he believed BHP was “perfectly capable” of resolving the situation.
“As far as I know, this is a straightforward commercial issue,” Senator Farrell said “They haven’t asked me to raise any issues with the Chinese government about that issue. To the best of my knowledge these are issues that BHP is perfectly capable of resolving in their own way.”
Rio’s stall prominently displayed the West African Simandou iron ore project it had jointly developed with Chinese state-owned giant Aluminium Corp of China. “In October 2025, we started loading first ore in Simandou for movement down the rail and to port,” said Rio’s large display of the giant iron ore project, dubbed the “Pilbara killer”.
Senator Farrell downplayed fears about the future of Australia’s $100bn iron ore trade to China, which is worth a fifth of its total exports to the world.
He noted the recent opening of a $2bn iron ore joint venture in Western Australia between Rio and Chinese giant Baowu Steel, which he discussed with Mr Wang on Tuesday evening.
“Look, we believe in free and fair trade and we believe in competition,” Senator Farrell said. “I don’t think we’ve got anything to fear from iron ore – whether it comes from South America or whether it comes from Africa. My understanding is demand for iron ore is continuing to increase – it’s not slowing down.”
Senator Farrell, who is also the federal Tourism Minister, was also bullish about the continued uptick of Chinese tourists back to Australia In 2019, China was the largest source of tourists to Australia. China is currently the second biggest source behind New Zealand, with just under a million visitors coming to Australia in the past 12 months “I think early next year they’ll overtake and become the largest,” he said.
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