TRANSCRIPT:
"At the direction of the president AUKUS is full steam ahead, as he said, and I know the Department of War, Secretary Hegseth will discuss that further, has conducted a review. It's a review about how we can expand this relationship, about how to build on it, so that it can be about many things."
That was the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, declaring his strong support for the AUKUS submarine program following months of waiting for the Trump administration's June review of the deal.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday, just days after the Pentagon confirmed the completion of its AUKUS review.
The government has a copy of the Pentagon’s five-month review of AUKUS, yet the key details have not been released to the public.
With both sides emphasising their support for AUKUS, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says the US alliance is indispensable to Australia.
"We are living in a much more contested world where it really matters to be doubling down with friends and allies, and obviously America is front and centre and foremost for Australia in that respect. ... President Trump has given us the motto for our meeting today, which is 'full steam ahead.' And it is very much full steam ahead in terms of the alliance, in terms of the progress on AUKUS."
Security talks in Washington DC focused heavily on Indo-Pacific tensions, the AUKUS security pact, and the resilience of critical mineral supply chains.
During the meeting, Foreign Minister Penny Wong declared her support for the AUKUS deal.
"The United States is our principal ally and our principal strategic partner. Together we navigate volatility, we invest in each other, we invest in the region's security and we boost each other's prosperity, whether that's through investment in critical minerals, critical technology, Australian superannuation or, of course, AUKUS. Australia's approach to the alliance has always been to work to ensure it delivers concrete benefits for our security and prosperity."
Secretary Hegseth praised the critical minerals deal, specifically highlighting it alongside Australia's contribution to AUKUS.
He referred to the upcoming $1 billion payment Australia is making to expand US submarine production capacity.
"And finally, as we move, as was mentioned, full steam ahead on AUKUS, we applaud Australia's upcoming delivery of an additional $1 billion to help expand US submarine production capacity. We're strengthening AUKUS so it works for America, for Australia and for the UK."
Analysts say US public polling indicates a desire for allies who rely on US security to increase their defence spending and overall defence efforts.
Dr Michael Clarke, an adjunct professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute, says this is reflected in the official strategy, which is evolving toward a mutual defence approach that demands greater contributions and commitments from its allies.
"In the US national security strategy, it's very clear that there are lines in there saying, you know, we need, we require allies to, in fact, do more. And there's this idea of developing, I think the phrase is a 'network of burden sharing.' And of course, there's no actual detail about what that actually implies, but it connects with the issue of AUKUS, certainly in Australian strategic and defence policy, because if the US is looking for more burden-sharing, that will require Australia to do more and presumably that would mean spending more on defence. And this sort of leads again to these bigger questions about not only the relationship with the United States but how that affects our relationship with Beijing."
He says solidifying the deal is provocative to China, evidenced by the brief mention of AUKUS in China's recent defence white paper.
"Not only the AUKUS agreement. We have US bases in Darwin, they're going to be expanding US usage of (the) RAAF base at Tindal, for instance, potentially utilising flying in and out B-52s and all the rest of it. You have the Joint Intelligence facilities as well in the Northern Territory. So all of that linkage, the interoperability that Australia has with the United States, kind of makes it a bit - what's the word here? - the event of a US-China conflict, people say, well, will we be a target? Well, given the fact that we have all of those installations we kind of automatically will be a target."
Dr Clarke says securing the AUKUS deal further strengthens the US alliance, but argues it may not necessarily reflect the current sentiment of Australians regarding the bilateral relationship.
"There is something of a divide, I think, certainly a latent divide, between what you might call the political class in Canberra, sort of the Canberra bubble, and perhaps the rest of the country. You know, the Canberra bubble is very, very much bipartisan that, you know, we're doubling down on the US Alliance, irrespective of Australian concerns about perhaps some of the unpredictability etc of the Trump administration. But that kind of stands in it of contrast, I think some of the more critical, maybe sceptical, views of the public vis a vis reliance on the United States at this current time."
The Pentagon has given no indication that any version of its five-month AUKUS review will be made public.
