Latest news with #nuclearSubmarines
RNZ News
3 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Australia, UK sign 50 year AUKUS submarine defence partnership treaty
Australia says it has signed a defence partnership deal with the UK to help Australia towards obtaining nuclear powered submarines. Shown, the USS Vermont, Virginia-class SSN - nuclear powered submarine (file photo). Photo: US Navy/ John Narewski Australia's government says it has signed a treaty with Britain to bolster cooperation over the next 50 years on the AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership. The AUKUS pact, agreed upon by Australia, Britain and the US in 2021, aims to provide Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines from the next decade, to counter China's ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. US President Donald Trump's administration announced a formal review of the pact this year. Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said in a statement that the bilateral treaty was signed with Britain's Defence Secretary John Healey on Saturday after a meeting in the city of Geelong, in Victoria state. "The Geelong Treaty will enable comprehensive cooperation on the design, build, operation, sustainment, and disposal of our SSN-AUKUS submarines," the statement said. The treaty was a "commitment for the next 50 years of UK-Australian bilateral defence cooperation under AUKUS Pillar I", it said, adding that it built on the "strong foundation" of trilateral AUKUS cooperation. Britain's ministry of defence said this week that the bilateral treaty would underpin the two allies' submarine programmes and was expected to be worth up to £20 billion (NZ$44b) for Britain in exports over the next 25 years. AUKUS is Australia's biggest-ever defence project, with Canberra committing to spend AU$368 billion over three decades to the programme, which includes billions of dollars of investment in the US production base. Australia, which this month paid AU$800 million to the US in the second instalment under AUKUS, has maintained it is confident the pact will proceed. The defence and foreign ministers of Australia and Britain held talks on Friday in Sydney on boosting cooperation, coinciding with Australia's largest war games. As many as 40,000 troops from 19 countries are taking part in the Talisman Sabre exercises held from 13 July to 4 August, which Australia's military has said are a rehearsal for joint warfare to maintain Indo-Pacific stability. Britain has significantly increased its participation in the exercise co-hosted by Australia and the United States, with aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales taking part this year. - Reuters
News.com.au
10-07-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Donald Trump's review into AUKUS deal could send price of submarines soaring with a worrying new China clause
Australia could face demands for a public declaration or private guarantee that US-made nuclear submarines would be used in concert with the United States in any future conflict with China. 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.
Washington Post
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
The high costs of Trump's ‘peace through strength'
It requires a lot of resources to do what the United States did to Iran last month. The U.S. developed and built the bunker busters, as well as the stealth bombers capable of flying them halfway around the world. It developed the intelligence to figure out where to hit, and was able to coordinate the airstrikes with a barrage of precision missiles launched from nuclear submarines lurking in the Arabian Sea.
Daily Mail
30-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Two US congressmen urge Albanese to visit White House
Two US congressmen have urged Anthony Albanese to visit the White House in order to meet Donald Trump and save the wavering AUKUS pact. Republican Michael McCaul and Democrat Joe Courtney are the co-chairs of the Friends of Australia Caucus, which is pushing for AUKUS to go ahead after Elbridge Colby, the US defense under-secretary for policy, announced a review of the nuclear submarine deal. 'That would be very sound advice for him to do that.' Meanwhile, Courtney said Albanese should highlight the significant investment Aussie companies were making in US shipyards, set to hit $4.6billion AUD. He also emphasized that Australia would pay a fair price for the several nuclear submarines set to be acquired from 2032. 'This really takes it out of the sort of America First criticism of security agreements... where President Trump felt that other countries weren't pulling their own weight,' Courtney said. 'It's a case that is very unique that the prime minister can articulate. '(Albanese) is a very personable and socially savvy person, kind of like (UK Prime Minister) Keir Starmer, who does seem to have succeeded with the personal interaction.' Albanese was stood up by the US President at the G7 Summit in Canada earlier this month , and instead met with members of Trump's senior economic team. Trump left the summit early due to the Israel-Iran conflict, scotching planned meeting with several world leaders including Albanese, who has only ever spoken to the US President on the phone. The prime minister also did not attend last week's NATO Summit, where political observers had hoped he would have a second chance to meet with Trump. In a win for the US President, members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - which Australia is not a part of - agreed at the summit to lift their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP over 10 years. The White House later indicated it expects its allies in the Asia-Pacific - including Australia - to also increase their defense funding. This means that Albanese may be pressured to increase defense spending if he wants to shore up the AUKUS deal, and to secure a reprieve from punishing tariffs imposed by the US on imports, including a 50 percent levy on steel and aluminum.
Daily Mail
30-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
American politician issues a wake-up call for Anthony Albanese - and what he needs to do for Trump
Two US congressmen have urged Anthony Albanese to visit the White House in order to meet Donald Trump and save the wavering AUKUS pact. Republican Michael McCaul and Democrat Joe Courtney are the co-chairs of the Friends of Australia Caucus, which is pushing for AUKUS to go ahead after Elbridge Colby, the US defence under-secretary for policy, announced a review of the nuclear submarine deal. McCaul said on Monday it was crucial for Albanese to develop a personal rapport with Trump. 'For (Albanese) to come to the White House would be a great gesture on the prime minister's part, that I think would go over very well,' he told the Australian Financial Review. 'That would be very sound advice for him to do that.' Meanwhile, Courtney said Albanese should highlight the significant investment Aussie companies were making in US shipyards, set to hit $4.6billion AUD. He also emphasised that Australia would pay a fair price for the several nuclear submarines set to be acquired from 2032. 'This really takes it out of the sort of America First criticism of security agreements... where President Trump felt that other countries weren't pulling their own weight,' Courtney said. 'It's a case that is very unique that the prime minister can articulate. '(Albanese) is a very personable and socially savvy person, kind of like (UK Prime Minister) Keir Starmer, who does seem to have succeeded with the personal interaction.' Albanese was stood up by the US President at the G7 Summit in Canada earlier this month, and instead met with members of Trump's senior economic team. Trump left the summit early due to the Israel-Iran conflict, scotching planned meeting with several world leaders including Albanese, who has only ever spoken to the US President on the phone. The prime minister also did not attend last week's NATO Summit, where political observers had hoped he would have a second chance to meet with Trump. In a win for the US President, members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - which Australia is not a part of - agreed at the summit to lift their defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP over 10 years. The White House later indicated it expects its allies in the Asia-Pacific - including Australia - to also increase their defence funding. This means that Albanese may be pressured to increase defence spending if he wants to shore up the AUKUS deal, and to secure a reprieve from punishing tariffs imposed by the US on imports, including a 50 per cent levy on steel and aluminium. In this year's Budget, the Albanese government raised defence spending to 2.2 per cent of GDP, aiming for 2.3 per cent by 2034 - well short of the 3 per cent of GDP that the Trump administration has previously demanded of Australia.
