US Vice President Mike Pence is expected to discuss trade and regional security when he meets Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull Today, Australian and US officials said.
Pence landed in Australia late yesterday, his fourth stop on a 10-day tour of US allies in the Asia-Pacific region that has included a series of roundtables with business executives in South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia.
His trip to Australia is the first by a senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration as the United States looks to strengthen economic ties and security cooperation amid disputes in the South China Sea and tension on the Korean peninsula.
Pence will emphasize the long-term partnership between the two countries on defense and the economy, even as Australia eyes the merits of developing a closer relationship with China, a White House foreign policy adviser said.
“We’re the number two in the economy in this sense,” the adviser told reporters traveling with Pence. “Obviously they lead with China. They are in the region, proximity matters to them.”
An official in Turnbull’s office noted Pence has already met and spoken by phone with several ministers about the Trump administration’s commitment to the bilateral relationship.