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As Trump begins his presidency with a flurry of executive orders and a promise to put America first, should Australia be looking elsewhere for its nuclear submarines?
The world has entered a strange new era. Donald J. Trump’s second term as President of the United States will be a term largely of disruption, of rolling back many of the moves of the previous Biden administration, withdrawing from global agreements such as the Paris Climate Accords, and generally endeavouring to favour domestic interests over international ones.
“The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world,” Trump said in his inauguration speech.
“We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer during every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first.”
At the same time, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said that the US is done with partnerships that don’t bring any advantage to the nation.
“We are done carrying the financial burden for nations that are unwilling to fund their own progress,” Witkoff said.
“The days of blank checks are over. Partnerships under president Trump’s leadership must be equitable, and contributions must reflect shared commitments to our goals.”
Which of course begs the question: Where do Trump and his administration stand when it comes to the AUKUS partnership?
The commitment is there, but is the capacity?
There’s no doubt that hands are still being shaken, and promises made to make delivery of Australia’s first nuclear-powered submarines a reality.
Speaking of her first meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Foreign Minister Penny Wong called the meeting “very warm and constructive”.
“Obviously we had the Quad meeting ahead of that, and we spoke about our shared interest and ambition, the strength of our alliance, the importance of our economic partnership, the work we’re doing together with the United Kingdom through Aukus, and of course critical minerals, which has been an issue that he and the president have spoken about,” Wong said.
Answering a question posed by a member of the press, Wong added that “it’s been really clear that the Trump administration understands the strategic imperative around Aukus, which is why the government is so committed to it”.
However, all the will in the world may not add up to much if the actual submarines remain stuck in their slips, which is exactly what Peter Briggs, an experienced Australian submariner who retired with the rank of Rear Admiral in 2021, is concerned about.
Writing for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute last week, Briggs painted a picture of a building program at a virtual stand-still, with the two shipyards responsible for building the Virginia-class boats experiencing serious supply chain and workforce shortages that are creating a backlog in construction.
“Within six years, the US must decide whether to proceed with sale of the first of at least three and possibly five Virginias to Australia, a boat that will be transferred from the US Navy’s fleet,” Briggs said.
“Nine months before the transfer goes ahead, the president of the day must certify that it will not diminish USN undersea capability. This certification is unlikely if the industry has not by then cleared its backlog and achieved a production rate of 2.3 a year—the long-term building rate of two a year for the USN plus about one every three years to cover Australia’s requirement.”
Briggs said the likelihood of that actually happening is “vanishingly small”.
“Australia’s SSN plan must worsen the US’s challenge in recovering from this situation, adding to the congestion in shipyards and further overloading supply chains already struggling to deliver SSNs to the USN,” Briggs said.
Considering that slowdown, Briggs feels that the cancellation of the Virginia deal is inevitable. He even suggests an alternative – convincing France that this time we mean it and attempting to acquire Suffren-class nuclear attack boats instead.
Whether or not such a diplomatic coup – given our last attempt at purchasing submarines from France – could actually be pulled off remains to be seen, however.
“They need us.”
Of course, going back to where we began, this is all assuming that the US actually does stick with the deal.
Former ambassador to the US, Arthur Sinodinos, could have been responding directly to Special Envoy Witkoff’s concerns over equity and advantage when he said of Trump and his administration that “the message to the Americans has to be they need us”.
“We need to remind the Americans of how much Australia brings to the table when it comes to defence, not just in terms of levels of spending, but where that money is spent,” Sinodinos told the ABC’s Radio National this week.
“It’s about AUKUS. It’s about force posture initiatives in the north of Australia; it’s about Pine Gap, it’s about the North West Cape. All the other stuff we do – which is integral to American security. They have to be reminded of, I think, the extent to which their security is based on what other countries do.”
The Americans, as Sinodinos says, may in fact need us. But that geopolitical reality may not be quite so readily apparent from behind the Resolute Desk, or from shipyards in Connecticut and Newport News.
