BILLINGS (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Tuesday that Montana is adapting well to globalization, and urged resistance to isolationist policies that could undermine free markets.

Paulson’s one-day visit to Billings was meant to highlight the continued economic importance of rural America in an era dominated by the rapid growth of international trade. He was accompanied by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who chairs the finance committee that oversees the Treasury Department.

The two visited a plant that manufactures equipment used to stripe roads and later attended a community forum at Montana State University-Billings. Baucus and Paulson said they were personal friends, but the events highlighted policy differences between Baucus’s party and the Republican administration Paulson serves.

On efforts to revalue Chinese currency, Paulson said he favored a negotiated agreement with the world’s most populous country, while Baucus recently shepherded legislation through his committee that calls for penalties against China if it fails to act quickly.

Also, Baucus lamented the country’s growing wage disparity, saying Montana was ‘‘at the bottom of the barrel’’ in per-capita income. He warned Republicans and Democrats are on a ‘‘collision course’’ over administration-sponsored tax cuts set to expire in 2010.

Paulson said a business-friendly tax code and low capital gains taxes are necessary to spur job growth and investment.

‘‘I look at the tax code through the lens of competitiveness,’’ said the secretary, a former Wall Street investment banker who left his job as chairman of Goldman Sachs to join the Bush administration last year.

He pointed to Montana’s economic growth — up 4.6 percent from 2005 to 2006, versus a national increase of 2.9 percent — as evidence that the Treasure State is adapting to economic change.

Baucus and Paulson found agreement on the need for companies to innovate and broaden their markets. They pointed to MRL Equipment Company of Billings as an example of a firm making a successful transition to the global era.

Since it was founded in 1989, MRL has grown from a small outfit with four or five employees to the nation’s largest road striping equipment company. With 90 employees and $19 million in annual sales, MRL has sold equipment in almost every state and is now expanding into international markets, said company president Jim Spielman.

‘‘The strength of the economy comes from companies like MRL,’’ Paulson said.