(Bloomberg) -- US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers in Washington on Tuesday, where the long-time ally’s pitch for an exemption from tariffs will be part of the agenda.
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The counterparts will sit down with US National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett at 7:30 a.m. in Washington. Chalmers and Bessent will then address a summit at the Australian Embassy to promote the investment potential of the nation’s rapidly growing $2.6 trillion pensions industry.
On the first formal day of the visit, Chalmers met US business leaders including Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, while a further meeting with JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon is expected Tuesday.
Talks on President Donald Trump’s planned steel and aluminum tariffs were ongoing and not expected to reach a resolution during his Washington visit, Chalmers said in a statement ahead of the meetings.
Tariffs will be “part of the conversation but not the whole conversation,” Chalmers said. Broader Australia-US economic ties, including around critical minerals, are also expected to be part of the discussion.
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Australia’s pension industry is one of the world’s fastest-growing, and presents the government with an ideal vehicle for touting its investment commitments to the US as Trump pushes his ‘America First’ policy with trading partners. The funds currently invest around $400 billion in US assets, a number that’s expected to double over the next decade.
Australia began trying to forge ties with the Trump team even before the president won the November election. Those efforts have been ramped up in the past month following Trump’s announcement that the US planned to impose 25% duties on imports of steel and aluminum.
Trump told Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during talks by telephone this month that he would consider Australia’s request for an exemption. However, the US leader’s senior trade adviser Peter Navarro made clear shortly after that he was not in favor of the idea. “Australia is just killing our aluminum market,” Navarro told CNN at the time.
--With assistance from Jon Herskovitz.