Treasurer Jim Chalmers will use a speech to foreign policy experts today to burnish his diplomatic credentials and issue a warning that Donald Trump's tariff plans may buffet Australia's economy and trigger a short-term inflation spike.

Billed as the first major comments by a member of the Albanese government since Trump's US presidential election victory, Mr Chalmers will say that foreign policy, like economic policy, "is a team effort".

He will assure Australians the government is "well placed and well prepared" for a Trump presidency.

Alongside about 150 meetings in just over two years, Mr Chalmers recently spent time with Mr Trump's potential pick for US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent.

The scale of Mr Chalmers's foreign engagements came to light after he asked his office to review his efforts, which include a visit to Washington DC late last month. 

On the trip Mr Chalmers met with Mr Bessent, a US investor, at an evening meeting hosted by Kevin Rudd at the official "White Oaks" ambassador's residence.

US media reports have described Mr Bessent — who met with president-elect Mr Trump on Friday, according to Reuters — as a "leading candidate" for the US treasury secretary job when the new administration takes over in January.

"We had a long discussion after dinner, at the ambassador's residence, two Thursdays ago," Mr Chalmers will say. 

"Getting more than an hour with a key member of President Trump's economic team 12 days before the election was a very valuable opportunity.

"We spoke about monetary policy, inflation, and tariffs and trade."

Mr Chalmers said the government was ready for either outcome in the US election, with modelling commissioned on different trade and tariff scenarios.

It found Australia should expect a small drop in economic "output" and "additional price pressures, particularly in the short term".

However, the country's flexible exchange rate and "independent central bank, would help mitigate against some of this".

By contrast, the global impact is expected to be "much more substantial".

"The timing of this, and the responses and ramifications that might follow – what economists call second-round effects – are difficult to predict," he will say.

"But we wouldn't be immune from escalating trade tensions that might ensue.

"This is consistent with the views expressed last week by the prime minister, treasury secretary, Reserve Bank governor, and CEO of the National Australia Bank."

A series of economic crises, the pandemic, wars and a wave of global inflation have created a world for treasurers in which economic and foreign policy are now "almost indistinguishable", he will say.

Mr Chalmers will say about half of his meetings since taking on the job have been with or focused on the Indo-Pacific, with 55 chats with economic ministers from countries in the region.

Speech to focus on diplomatic efforts

The speech, which will be delivered to the Australian Institute of International Affairs in Canberra, notes that the treasurer's global diplomacy has been a "remarkably big slice of time and effort".

"This is an uncertain world characterised by economic volatility and vulnerability," Mr Chalmers will say.

"Treasurers have important roles and responsibilities and I've embraced them."

The remarks are notable as they seek to underscore Mr Chalmers's experience beyond the narrow economic and budget issues that dominate his current role.

They may also spur speculation that Mr Chalmers is eager to emphasise his policy chops beyond the Treasury.

While prospects of a leadership change inside Labor are remote, according to internal sources, Mr Chalmers appears to be following a playbook adopted by his boss Anthony Albanese during the Coalition government.

Whenever the then-Labor leader Bill Shorten found himself in political hot water or facing negative media headlines, the then-shadow transport spokesman would ensure he kept busy by giving speeches about his views on the Labor party and left politics.

While he was careful not to undermine the leader in those appearances, they had the effect of subtly reminding colleagues and voters that he was still around and available to step up if the opportunity arose.

Amid a slide in polls that saw Peter Dutton take the lead in Newspoll for the first time since the election, Mr Albanese has spent recent weeks fending off criticism about his decision to purchase a multi-million-dollar beach house north of Sydney as well as questions over Qantas upgrades while he was the transport minister.

Mr Chalmers's speech comes after he last month conducted an interview with the Seven Network's Spotlight program, in which he revealed personal struggles, including a past of excessive drinking and a major health battle.

He also said the worst days of the cost-of-living crisis were in the past.

Role of treasurer has been internationalised, Chalmers says

As Mr Albanese prepares for a trip later in the week to Peru for a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders, Mr Chalmers will say that it has been "a long time since it would be considered strange for an Australian treasurer to address a gathering of foreign policy thinkers like this".

"Ever since our economy opened up in the 1980s and the G20 played a crucial role during the GFC, the role of treasurer has internationalised in important ways.

"So many of our economic challenges are global and that makes economic security the central question."

He will say that the last 15 years have seen Australians experience three major economic shocks, each of them global.

"A financial crisis which began on Wall Street. A pandemic which began in Wuhan. And an inflation spike that followed, exacerbated by a war in Ukraine and escalation in the Middle East."

A review by the treasurer's office of his foreign engagements since the election revealed he has held 63 meetings with economic ministers, including eight with his Indonesian counterpart Sri Mulyani and Canada's deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland.

Six were with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and four with New Zealand Finance Minister Nicola Willis as well as their Japanese counterparts.

He has met with China's representatives three times, including with National Development and Reform Commission chairman Zheng Shanjie, as well as the top Indian and South Korean ministers.

"We haven't chosen between bilateral and multilateral efforts — we've engaged whenever and wherever we can," he will say.

"At G20 meetings in Indonesia, India, Brazil and the United States."

Across 23 multilateral meetings he has had 11 direct discussions with the heads of multilateral development banks, the IMF and OECD.

"At the same time, I was the first treasurer to meet with counterparts in China in seven years, restarting the Strategic Economic Dialogue in Beijing.

"The first to convene joint meetings of treasurers and climate ministers with our friends in New Zealand, on both sides of the ditch.

"And the first to attend Pacific Islands Forum economic ministers meeting in two decades, in Suva."