Politicians from both major parties in the United States are urging the Trump administration to maintain the three-way AUKUS security partnership designed to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
It is a promising sign for Australia, which has made moves to shore up the alliance in recent weeks.
Late last month, Australia and the United Kingdom signed a 50-year treaty to help strengthen the alliance.
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Two weeks ago, the Department of Defence announced it would review AUKUS, the 4-year-old pact signed by Joe Biden with Australia and the U.K.
The announcement means the Republican administration is looking closely at a partnership that many believe is critical to the US strategy to push back China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific. The review is expected to be completed in the fall.
Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison appeared at a congressional hearing in Washington DC last month, where he warned of the threat China poses in the Indo-Pacific region.
Australia has now received support from important figures on both sides of American politics.
“AUKUS is essential to strengthening deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and advancing the undersea capabilities that will be central to ensuring peace and stability,” Republican Representative John Moolenaar of Michigan and Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois wrote in a July 22 letter to Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Moolenaar chairs the House of Representatives panel on China and Krishnamoorthi is its top Democrat.
The review comes as the Trump administration works to rebalance its global security concerns while struggling with a hollowed-out industrial base that has hamstrung US capabilities to build enough warships.
The review is being led by Elbridge Colby, a Pentagon official, who has expressed scepticism about the partnership.
“If we can produce the attack submarines in sufficient number and sufficient speed, then great. But if we can’t, that becomes a very difficult problem,” Colby said during his confirmation hearing in March.
“This is getting back to restoring our defence industrial capacity so that we don’t have to face these awful choices but rather can be in a position where we can produce not only for ourselves, but for our allies.”
USA cannot build enough ships
As part of the $US269 billion ($412 billion) AUKUS partnership, the United States will sell three to five Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, with the first delivery scheduled as soon as 2032.
The USA and the UK would help Australia design and build another three to five attack submarines to form an eight-boat force for Australia.
A March report by the Congressional Research Service warned that the lack of American shipbuilding capacities, including workforce shortage and insufficient supply chains, is jeopardising the much-celebrated partnership.
If the USA should sell the vessels to Australia, the US Navy would have a shortage of attack submarines for two decades, the report said.
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The Navy has been ordering two boats per year in the last decade, but American shipyards have been only producing 1.2 Virginia-class subs a year since 2022, the report said.
“The delivery pace is not where it needs to be” to make good on the first pillar of AUKUS, Admiral Daryl Caudle, nominee for the Chief of Naval Operations, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.
Australia has invested $US1 billion in the US submarine industrial base, with another $US1 billion to be paid before the end of this year.
It has agreed to contribute a total of $US3 billion to uplift the US submarine base, and it has sent both industry personnel to train at U.S. shipyards and naval personnel for submarine training in the United States.
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“Australia was clear that we would make a proportionate contribution to the United States industrial base,” an Australian defence spokesperson said in July.
“Australia’s contribution is about accelerating US production rates and maintenance to enable the delivery of Australia’s future Virginia-class submarines.”
The three nations have also jointly tested communication capabilities with underwater autonomous systems, Australia’s defence ministry said on July 23.
Per the partnership, the countries will co-develop other advanced technologies, from undersea to hypersonic capabilities.
At the recent Aspen Security Forum, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, also the Australian ambassador to the United States, said his country is committed to increasing defense spending to support its first nuclear-powered sub program, which would also provide “massively expensive full maintenance repair facilities” for the US. Indo-Pacific fleet based in Western Australia.
Rudd expressed confidence that the two governments “will work our way through this stuff.”
AUKUS called ‘crucial to American deterrence’
Bruce Jones, senior fellow with the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology, told The Associated Press that the partnership, by positioning subs in Western Australia, is helping arm the undersea space that is “really crucial to American deterrence and defence options in the Western Pacific.”
“The right answer is not to be content with the current pace of submarine building. It’s to increase the pace,” Jones said.
Jennifer Parker, who has served more than 20 years with the Royal Australian Navy and founded Barrier Strategic Advisory, said it should not be a zero-sum game.
“You might sell one submarine to Australia, so you have one less submarine on paper. But in terms of the access, you have the theater of choice from operating from Australia, from being able to maintain your submarines from Australia,” Parker said.
“This is not a deal that just benefits Australia.”
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Defence policy is one of the few areas where Republican lawmakers have pushed back against the Trump administration, but their resolve is being tested with the Pentagon’s review of AUKUS. So far, they have joined their Democratic colleagues in voicing support for the partnership.
They said the US submarine industry is rebounding with congressional appropriations totaling $US10 billion since 2018 to ensure the US will have enough ships to allow for sales to Australia.
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia told the AP that support for AUKUS is strong and bipartisan, “certainly on the Armed Services Committee.”
“There is a little bit of mystification about the analysis done at the Pentagon,” Kaine said, adding that “maybe (what) the analysis will say is: We believe this is a good thing.”
– With Associated Press
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