The rosy assessments would appear to back up a Washington Post report last month that said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles that the AUKUS deal would continue despite the Pentagon’s “America First” review.
A report by Nikkei Asia last month also said the agreement, including the sale of at least three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, had survived the review. But senior Pentagon official John Noh, the deputy assistant secretary of war for East Asia, later told the Senate the review was ongoing.
Pentagon officials could not be reached for comment on Sunday. The review has been led by undersecretary of defence for policy Elbridge Colby, a China hawk who believes in posturing US resources to focus on potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific, and who has expressed scepticism about AUKUS in the past.
Australian government figures have been increasingly confident the AUKUS review will not recommend major changes – although under the terms of the deal, the president of the day retains the ability to veto sales of the submarine if they determine the US needs them. Production of the Virginia-class boats is lagging at about 1.2 vessels a year, but needs to increase to at least 2.0 for the US to meet its commitments.
Australian ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd, who hosted an AUKUS industry summit at the embassy last week, said afterwards that the agreement was “powering ahead”.
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Republican congressman Ryan Zinke, a former interior secretary in the first Trump administration, attended the summit and said the AUKUS pact was “breaking down bureaucracy and ensuring our closest allies, like Australia and the UK, get the tools they need to deter our adversaries”.
Albanese arrived in Washington late on Sunday night (lunchtime Monday AEDT) and headed to Blair House, the official residence for state visitors located across the road from the White House.
“We’ll work hard here to create benefits for Australians back home, from regional security to trade and investment,” Albanese tweeted after touching down in the US.
He is due to meet Trump at the Oval Office at 11am Monday (2am Tuesday AEDT) for a bilateral meeting and lunch.
The following day, he will attend an event with the Friends of Australia Caucus in the US Congress, and then a lunch at the Australian embassy hosted by BHP to mark the mining giant’s 140th anniversary.
There, he will meet US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who is also director of the National Energy Dominance Council, and David Copley, a former mining executive who now looks after the Trump administration’s critical minerals supply chain push on the National Security Council.
Striking an agreement for the US to buy critical minerals from Australia is expected to be one of Albanese’s top priorities at the White House, with both countries of the view that China’s dominance of rare earths refinement and supply is bad for competition and economic security.
This masthead reported at the weekend that under the proposed deal, the US Department of War, previously the Department of Defence, would invest directly in Australian critical minerals projects to source the rare earths needed for American fighter jets.
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