Pentagon Is Reviewing Deal to Equip Australia With Nuclear Submarines

New York Times

a day ago

The Trump administration is reviewing whether a security pact between the United States, Britain and Australia meant to equip Australia with nuclear submarines is 'aligned with the president's America First agenda,' a U.S. defense official said on Wednesday.
When the deal was reached under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s administration in 2021, it was billed as crucial for countering China's growing military influence in the Asia Pacific. Now, its review appears to reinforce President Trump's skeptical and transactional approach to longstanding alliances, including demands that allies spend more on their own defense.
The Pentagon official said the review would ensure that the pact, known as Aukus, met 'common-sense, America First criteria,' including ensuring that U.S. forces are at 'the highest readiness,' that allies are doing their part, and that 'the defense industrial base is meeting our needs.' The review was first reported by The Financial Times.
Australia's defense minister, Richard Marles, said both Australia and Britain had been notified about the review and that all three nations were still committed to the deal.
'We've been aware of this for some time. We welcome it,' Mr. Marles said in a radio interview with ABC Melbourne on Thursday, Australia time. 'It's something which is perfectly natural for an incoming administration to do.'
Australia sees the Aukus agreement as central to its defense strategy in the coming decades in a region increasingly shaped by China's assertive military posturing. Nuclear submarines can travel much farther without detection than conventional ones can and would enable the Australian Navy to greatly extend its reach.
Under the pact, Australia is scheduled to receive secondhand Virginia-class nuclear submarines from the United States in the 2030s while scaling up the capacity to build its own, using a British design. But there has been concern in both Washington and Canberra about whether the United States can build new submarines to replenish its fleet quickly enough for the older ones to be transferred to Australia.
Elbridge Colby, the U.S. under secretary of defense for policy, said during his Senate confirmation hearing in March that he was skeptical about the pragmatic feasibility of the deal. The Financial Times reported that Mr. Colby was heading up the Pentagon review.
'So if we can produce the attack submarines in sufficient number and sufficient speed, then great,' Mr. Colby said at the hearing. 'But if we can't, that becomes a very difficult problem.'
Even before the review was announced, concern and anxiety had been building in Australia over whether it could continue to depend on its longstanding relationship with the United States, given the Trump administration's treatment of allies.
Mr. Marles, the Australian defense minister, said in the radio interview that he was confident the Aukus deal would proceed because 'it's in the interests of the United States to continue to work with Australia.'
Michael D. Shear contributed reporting from Washington.