Trump administration to review Australia-UK defense pact

“Any adjustments to the administration’s method for AUKUS might be communicated by way of official channels, when applicable.”

AUKUS, shaped in 2021 to handle shared worries about China’s rising energy, is designed to permit Australia to accumulate nuclear-powered assault submarines and different superior weapons similar to hypersonic missiles.

Vocal skeptics of the AUKUS deal amongst Trump’s senior coverage officers embody Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s prime coverage advisor.

In a 2024 discuss with Britain’s Coverage Trade think-tank, Colby cautioned that US army submarines had been a scarce, important commodity, and that US business couldn’t produce sufficient of them to satisfy American demand.

They’d even be central to US army technique in any confrontation with China centered within the First Island Chain, an space that runs from Japan by way of Taiwan, the Philippines and on to Borneo, enclosing China’s coastal seas.