Donald Trump's review into AUKUS deal could send price of submarines soaring with a worrying new China clause
As the Prime Minister prepares for a six-day tour of China on Saturday there are fresh reports that the Trump administration could demand new conditions for providing nuclear submarines to Australia including even more cash.
It follows the Prime Minister's speech over the weekend affirming support for the US alliance but cautioning that Australia will always pursue its own interests first.
The move comes as both Australia and the UK face pressure from the White House to lift military spending, demands that the Albanese government has resisted to date.
But Australia is now facing the prospect of a Trump administration review demanding it pay more for submarines under the $368 billion AUKUS pact and a guarantee the boats support the US in a conflict over Taiwan.
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that big changes are expected as a result of the US review into the deal brokered by former leaders Joe Biden, Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson.
'Pissing everyone off'
The man US President Donald Trump deputised to call an investigation into Australia's nuclear submarine deal is also 'pissing everyone off', according to a fresh report in the United States.
The Pentagon's Deputy Under Secretary of Defence for Policy, Elbridge Colby is one of the biggest AUKUS sceptics who has raised concerns about the $363 billion deal.
The US has launched a review of its multi-billion dollar submarine deal with the UK and Australia, insisting the security pact must fit its 'America First' agenda.
But amid predictions that the US will drive a tougher bargain and demand even more cash from Australia for the submarine deal, reports have surfaced over divisions in the Trump administration.
The Politico website has reported that he surprised top officials at the State Department and the National Security Council in June when he decided to review America's submarine pact with Australia and the U.K.
'He is pissing off just about everyone I know inside the administration,' said one person familiar with the situation. 'They all view him as the guy who's going to make the US do less in the world in general.'
'He has basically decided that he's going to be the intellectual driving force behind a kind of neo-isolationism that believes that the United States should act more alone, that allies and friends are kind of encumbering.'
Politico also reported that when the British defense team came to the Pentagon in June and spoke about the U.K.'s decision to send an aircraft carrier to Asia on a routine deployment, Colby interjected.
'He basically asked them, 'Is it too late to call it back?'' said the person familiar with Trump administration dynamics. 'Because we don't want you there.'
'He was basically saying, 'You have no business being in the Indo-Pacific,'' a British source told Politico.
Crucial juncture in US-Aus diplomacy
Opposition finance spokesman James Paterson warned divisions in the US showed diplomacy was at a crucial juncture.
'We are entitled to try and influence that process and any country with any diplomatic heft or ability to move quickly would be all over this and I've got no sense at all that's happening from the Albanese government,' he told Sky News.
'It is now 247 days since President Trump was elected and Prime Minister Albanese is one of the only world leaders not to have a face-to-face meeting with him, not to have sat down to him, not to even make an attempt to go to Washington DC to meet with the President and that is alarming.
'Now we've also got a problem where there are credible media reports that speculate that our US Ambassador Kevin Rudd is not able to get a meeting in the White House. Now if that is true then that is making this even harder task for us.
'So we should be able to save AUKUS but we are not going to save AUKUS if we just let this thing on cruise, if we don't take charge of it, if the Prime Minister doesn't personally take charge of it, get over to Washington DC and persuade the President in person of the merits of this deal and the things that America gains from this deal which are very significant.'
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young was critical of the 'dud deal' during an interview after news of the AUKUS complications broke on Thursday..
'The US is already starting to put up the flagpole that Australians, Australian taxpayers are going to have to pay more for it,' Ms Hanson-Young told Sky News Australia.
'We've already coughed up the money.
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The UN says more than 1000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites. The Israeli military has acknowledged that its forces have killed some Palestinians seeking aid and says it has given its troops new orders to improve their response. The UN has declined to work with the GHF, which it says distributes aid in ways that are inherently dangerous and violate humanitarian neutrality principles, contributing to the hunger crisis across the territory. The GHF says nobody has been killed at its distribution points, and that it is doing a better job of protecting aid deliveries than the UN Israel blames Hamas and the UN for the failure of food to get to desperate Palestinians in Gaza and introduced the GHF distribution system, saying it would prevent aid supplies being seized by Hamas. Hamas denies stealing aid. Indirect negotiations between the sides aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal ended last week in deadlock. Hamas on Friday released a video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David in one of its tunnels appearing skeletally thin. Its allied Islamic Jihad militant group released a video on Thursday of hostage Rom Braslavski, crying and pleading for his release. Witkoff visited Gaza a day after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is under mounting international pressure over the devastation of Gaza since the start of the war and growing starvation among its 2.2 million inhabitants. Gaza medics say dozens of people have died of malnutrition in recent days after Israel cut off all supplies to the enclave for nearly three months from March to May. Israel says it is taking steps to let in more aid, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas and announcing protected routes for aid convoys. On Friday, the Israeli military said 200 trucks of aid were distributed by the UN and other organisations on Thursday, with hundreds more waiting to be picked up from the border crossings inside Gaza. The UN says it has thousands of trucks still waiting, if Israel would let them in without the stringent security measures that aid groups say have prevented the entry of humanitarian assistance. Israel began allowing food air drops this week, but UN agencies say these are a poor alternative to letting in more trucks. On Friday, the Israeli military said that 126 food packages were airdropped by six countries, including for the first time France, Spain, and Germany. The Gaza war began when Hamas killed more than 1200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Israel's offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
