Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has said Australia's ties with the United States represent the nation's most important strategic economic relationship, The Australian Financial Review reports.
According to the newspaper, Ms Bishop said Australia's 63-year-old alliance with the US remained "the cornerstone of our national security" and said that “our single most important economic partner is, in fact, the United States".
The comments diverge from the previous Labor government's emphasis on fostering strategic relationships with our Asian neighbours, particularly China.
The Abbott government has removed the previous government's "Asian Century" white paper from official government websites.
Ms Bishop emphasised that while two-way trade between China and Australia dwarfed that with the US, when bilateral investment was factored in, the US relationship was by far the most important, amounting to "over $1 trillion", according to the AFR.
