By Kirsty Needham, Renju Jose and David Brunnstrom
SYDNEY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Thursday he was confident the AUKUS submarine pact with the U.S. and Britain would proceed, and his government would work closely with the U.S. while the Trump administration conducted a formal review.
In an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio interview, Marles said AUKUS was in the strategic interests of all three countries and the new review of the deal signed in 2021 when Joe Biden was the U.S. president was not a surprise.
“I am very confident this is going to happen,” he said of AUKUS, which would give Australia nuclear-powered submarines.
“This is a multi-decade plan. There will be governments that come and go and I think whenever we see a new government, a review of this kind is going to be something which will be undertaken,” Marles told the ABC.
Australia in 2023 committed to spend A$368 billion ($239.3 billion) over three decades on AUKUS, Australia’s biggest ever defence project with the United States and Britain, to acquire and build nuclear-powered submarines.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to meet U.S. President Donald Trump for the first time next week on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Canada, where the security allies will discuss tariffs and a request from the United States for Australia to increase defence spending from 2% to 3.5% of gross domestic product.
Albanese had previously said defence spending would rise to 2.3% and has declined to commit to the U.S. target, saying Australia would focus on capability needs.
Under AUKUS, Australia was scheduled to make a $2 billion payment in 2025 to the U.S. to help boost its submarine shipyards and speed up lagging production rates of Virginia-class submarines to allow the sale of up to three U.S. submarines to Australia from 2032.
The first $500 million payment was made when Marles met with his U.S. counterpart Pete Hegseth in February.
US NOT MEETING PRODUCTION TARGETS
The Pentagon’s top policy advisor Elbridge Colby, who has previously expressed concern the U.S. would lose submarines to Australia at a critical time for military deterrence against China, will be a key figure in the review, examining the production rate of Virginia-class submarines, Marles said.
“It is important that those production and sustainment rates are improved,” he added.
AUKUS would grow the U.S. and Australian defence industries and generate thousands of manufacturing jobs, Marles said in a statement.
John Lee, an Australian Indo-Pacific expert at Washington’s conservative Hudson Institute think tank, said the Pentagon review was “primarily an audit of American capability” and whether it can afford to sell up to five nuclear powered submarines when it was not meeting its own production targets.
“Relatedly, the low Australian defence spending and ambiguity as to how it might contribute to a Taiwan contingency is also a factor,” Lee said.
Charles Edel, Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said AUKUS was significant for “enhancing deterrence by putting more players in the field”, and it would be important for Albanese to seek reassurance from Trump when they meet.
“A necessary part of the conversation will be discussing how both Australia and the U.S. are working to boost their own defence capabilities, enhancing allied integration, and delivering deterrent effects with a sense of urgency,” he said.
Under the multi-stage AUKUS timeline, Britain and Australia will jointly build a new AUKUS-class submarine expected to come into service from 2040.
Marles said Britain’s recently completed review of AUKUS was positive. Britain announced plans this month to increase the size of its nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet.
($1 = 1.5380 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham and Renju Jose in Sydney and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and Jamie Freed)
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