SYDNEY-The Minister of Defense of Australia said Thursday that he was convinced that the Ukus underwater pact with the United States and Great Britain would take place and that his government would work closely with the United States while the Trump administration produced an official exam.
Australia in 2023 is committed to spending 368 billion Australian dollars (239 billion dollars) over three decades for Aukus, the country’s largest defense project with the United States and Great Britain, to acquire and build nuclear propulsion submarines.
A Pentagon official said the administration examined Aukus to ensure that it was “aligned with the president of the president of the president of the president” on the eve of the expected talks between President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
In an interview with the Broadcasting Corporation Australian Radio, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said that Akus was in the strategic interests of the three countries and that the new review of the agreement signed in 2021 when Joe Biden was the American president was not a surprise.
“I am very convinced that this will happen,” he said about Aukus, who would give Australia nuclear propulsion submarines.
“This is a plan for several decades. There will be governments that go and I think that each time we see a new government, a such examination will be something that will be undertaken,” Marles told ABC.
Albanese is expected to meet Trump for the first time next week on the touch of the 7 group’s group meeting in Canada, where security allies will discuss a Washington request for Australia to increase defense expenses from 2% to 3.5% of gross domestic product.
Albanese said defense expenses would increase to 2.3% and refused to engage in the American target.
The Liberal Opposition Party pressed Albanian on Thursday to increase defense spending.
Under Aukus, Australia had to make a payment of $ 2 billion in 2025 in the United States to help stimulate its underwater shipyards and accelerate the late production rates of Virginie class submarines to allow sales to three American submarines in Australia from 2032.
The first payment of $ 500 million was made when Marles met his American counterpart, Pete Hegseth, in February.
Pentagon’s main political adviser, Elbridge Colby, who previously expressed his concern that the United States will lose submarines for the benefit of Australia at a critical time for military deterrence against China, will be a key figure in the journal, examining the production rate of Virginia class submarines, said Marles.
“It is important that these production and maintenance rates are improved,” he added.
Aukus would develop the United States and Australian defense industries and generate thousands of manufacturing jobs, Marles said in a statement.
John Lee, an Australian Indo-Pacific Expert of the Conservative Reflection Group of the Hudson Institute in Washington, said that the Pentagon journal was “mainly an audit of American capacity” and if it can afford to sell up to five nuclear propulsion submarines when it does not reach its own production objectives.
“Likewise, the low Australian defense expenses and ambiguity as to the way it could contribute to a possibility of Taiwan is also a factor,” said Lee.
John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former senior Pentagon, told a Lowy Institute seminar on Thursday in Sydney, there is a perception in Washington according to which “the Albanian government supported Aukus but not really supported on Aukus”, and that defense expenses are part of it.
As part of the several stages pact, four artisanal virginia submarines will be organized in a navy of Western Australia on the Indian Ocean from 2027, which a superior commander of the US Navy told Congress in April giving the United States a “forehand to the Sea of Southern China”.
Albanese wants to buy three Virginia submarines from 2032 to carry its underwater force under the Australian command.
Great Britain and Australia will jointly build a new Aukus class submarine which should enter service from 2040. Following a recent defense review, Great Britain said it would increase the expenses of its fleet of attack submarines under Aukus.
Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who concluded the agreement with Aukus with Biden, said on Thursday that Australia should “redo the case” for the treaty.
Aukus would built more submarines in the three partners and “was fundamentally to strengthen collective deterrent, in particular in Indo-Pacific against potential adversaries,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
