Federal Trade Minister Steve Ciobo said President Trump’s decision not to ratify the TPP is disappointing, although not unexpected. The Minister spent the weekend speaking with business leaders in New York

“I have been speaking at length with my TPP counterparts on ways to lock in the benefits from the TPP - without the United States if need be,” Mr Ciobo said.

“A number of options are available to us and there is a strong desire to ensure the benefits of the TPP are not lost,” he said.

“Ratification of the Agreement is the strongest message we can send on the importance of the TPP. It would be a clear statement from the Australian Parliament that we reject protectionism and that open markets are the path to long-term sustainable job creation.”

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said ratifying the TPP would demonstrate Australia's commitment to free trade while negotiating new bilateral agreements. Mr Joyce, who is in Berlin for a meeting of world agriculture ministers, said Australian diplomats had made their interest in trade deals clear with European counterparts.

"These things are by their nature sometimes convoluted and the more high level meetings that you have to progress this issue, ultimately lead to a better return for Australia," he said.

In November the Australian Trade Minister Ciobo said without US involvement, the TPP would become a fundamentally different partnership agreement. However, was hopeful Mr Trump would revive the deal in the near future.

"Now, there will be some countries [that] don't want to be part of that global value chain but that's not Australia's future — that's not where we need to be," Mr Ciobo said.

Mr Ciobo said it was unreasonable for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to not have economic modelling on the impact of a US withdrawal from the TPP deal.

"It’s frankly a little unreasonable to expect institutions like the World Bank and others around the world to have raced out and modelled something on a hypothetical," he said.