The Australian government is hopeful that the prospect of Donald Trump being returned to the White House on November 5 will not disrupt trade relationships between the two nations.
The news comes as Americans head to the polls for Super Tuesday where 16 US states and one US territory cast ballots in presidential primaries.
Unusually, however, for a Super Tuesday the race for the White House is already down to only two candidates in current US President and Democrat Joe Biden and former US President and Republican Donald Trump.
Some polling shows Mr Trump about two points ahead of Biden.
If re-elected, Mr Trump has promised to impose a 10 per cent tariff on all US imports, which could possibly trigger a cavalcade of retaliatory measures.
He has also previously campaigned against free trade as being harmful to American workers.
Insiders fear his return to office could undermine the international trading system, including that which has been rebuilt after he lost the 2020 US presidential election, and disrupt the World Trade Organisation.
Government sources said bitter memories continue to linger of Trump killing the Trans-Pacific Partnership between America, Australia, New Zealand and nine other Pacific nations and its impact on local producers.
The deal was billed as the gold-standard in free trade deals and was a key plank of the then Coalition government's trade policy before Trump signed the executive order to withdraw the US in 2017.
Speaking to ACM Agri from the Association of Southeast Nations special summit in Melbourne, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said the federal government was watching the electoral process unfold with interest.
However, Mr Watt said "we are confident of our alliance with the US going forward irrespective of who the President is."
"Obviously it is a matter for the US people who their President should be," he said.
"We have had long-standing alliance with the US and long-standing trade relationships and we would expect them to survive and prosper under any American administration."
Meanwhile, Trade Minister Don Farrell said in a separate interview that "as a government, we're trying to prepare for every eventuality, whether it's positive or negative.".
"Firstly, I wouldn't be predicting the outcome of the American election. We saw in 2016 you get surprise results in American elections. Secondly, sometimes what candidates say before the election is not actually how it plays out," he said.
Mr Farrell has finalised several free trade deals with a range of nations since Labor came to power in 2022 and has many others in the pipeline.
Australia has also joined the US and several other countries in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a mechanism to build cooperation and economic integration, that includes a Supply Chain Resilience.
Australian agricultural exports to the United States are worth more than $6 billion and it is one of Australia's largest market for beef, lamb, goat and read meat.
