Trump said the deal was “full steam ahead” when he met with Albanese last month, although Navy Secretary John Phelan said some “ambiguity” remained about parts of the deal, and Albanese later acknowledged there would be changes but would not say what they were.
Australia is due to pay another $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) towards the US submarine industrial base before the end of this year to improve the production rate, which has lagged at about 1.2 boats a year. Experts say it must increase to about two boats a year for the US to be in a position to fulfil its AUKUS commitments.
Australia’s first submarine chief, Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, has announced he will retire from the Australian Submarine Agency in the middle of 2026, meaning the Albanese government must appoint a new commander to the high-stakes job before the first US nuclear-powered submarine is due to be dispatched to Western Australia some time in 2027.
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Velez-Green, who has been nominated to be Colby’s deputy, was being questioned by Mississippi Republican senator Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who complained that he was not consulted about the lengthy AUKUS review, “which upset out friends in Australia and cast doubt on whether we were committed to this agreement”.
The hearing came two days after Wicker and other Republican senators vented frustration with the Pentagon policy unit over decisions on AUKUS, and other matters, which they said were at odds with Trump’s priorities.
However, others defended Colby and the Pentagon policy team from “anonymous and misleading” criticism. Missouri Republican senator Eric Schmitt said the resistance to Colby was coming from people invested in “maintaining a foreign policy status quo that has repeatedly failed the American people”.
Evan Montgomery, the vice president of research and studies at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said he was confident the nuclear-powered submarines would be delivered because the pact was so important for the broader strategic alliance between the US and Australia.
“It’s hard for me to imagine a situation in which the US does not actually provide those Virginia-Class [boats] to Australia roughly on the timeline we are expecting,” he said after an event at the Cato Institute in Washington about defending Taiwan. “It would be so disruptive to all these other co-operative endeavours that are underway for AUKUS to falter.”
Montgomery said even if Australia was reluctant to use the nuclear-powered submarines in the early stages of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea, having that capability “may give Australia more confidence to lean in early and forcefully on the side of the United States in ways that may be just as valuable, or more valuable, in the early stages of a conflict”.
