‘No doubt' Trump will back nuclear submarine deal, says Starmer

Telegraph

16 hours ago

There is 'no doubt' that Donald Trump will end up backing the Aukus nuclear submarine deal, Sir Keir Starmer has said during his trip to Canada ahead of the G7 summit.
The pact between Australia, the UK and the US, known by its acronym, was thrown into doubt last week when the Pentagon announced a review into it.
The agreement was signed in 2021 and is worth £176 billion, giving Australia nuclear-powered submarines for the first time. It is designed to counter the influence of China in the Indo-Pacific.
The US president has appointed Elbridge Colby to head up the review.
The former US deputy assistant secretary of defence questioned the deal in a speech last year, asking why the US was giving away 'this crown jewel asset when we most need it'.
Both the US and the UK are under pressure to boost defence spending from Mr Trump, who has demanded Western allies do more to protect their own security.
Sir Keir is expected to hold talks with Mr Trump during the G7 summit in Canada, giving him the opportunity to sway his counterpart to remain committed to the Aukus pact.
Travelling with reporters on a plane to Canada, Sir Keir was asked what his message would be to Mr Trump about the importance of the alliance.
Sir Keir said: 'Aukus is really important. We're fully committed to it.
'It's not unusual for an incoming government to do a review of a project like that. We, of course, looked into the issue when we came into government... and they're doing their own review.
'But I'm 100 per cent committed to it. I'm really clear about that.'
Asked if he was confident Mr Trump would end up backing Aukus, Sir Keir said: 'Yeah, I think so. It's a really important project. So I don't have any doubt that this will progress.'
The public optimism has been echoed in Australia, where Richard Marles, the defence minister, recently said of the review: 'I'm very confident this is going to happen.'
Concerns about whether Mr Trump would remain fully behind Aukus were flagged early internally by Downing Street when he won the US presidential election last November.
The agreement was signed by Joe Biden, the Democrat who defeated Mr Trump in the 2020 presidential election and has often been a focus of his criticism.
Indeed, the other two leaders who signed the pact have also changed, with Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison long gone as the leaders of the UK and Australia respectively.
Mr Trump appeared not to know what the acronym Aukus meant when it was mentioned in the Oval Office during Sir Keir's first visit to the new US president in February.
But the Prime Minister seems hopeful that, like the deal to hand sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius that was waved through by Mr Biden, Mr Trump will eventually give it his backing.
A Pentagon official told the BBC last week when the review was announced that the process was to ensure Aukus meets 'common sense, America First criteria'.
Australia is buying up to five nuclear-powered submarines at a huge expense from the US, potentially making it easy to frame the deal as a boost for the American economy.
Meanwhile, the date for implementation of the UK-US free trade deal, signed off by Sir Keir and Mr Trump in May, appears to be days away.
It is possible Sir Keir will announce that the agreement is finally kicking in during the G7 summit, should he hold a formal bilateral meeting with the US president.