Donald Trump hints AUKUS backer Robert O’Brien will play a key role in new administration
Donald Trump has shed light on who will form his national security team if he returns to power, with one key figure’s view on AUKUS likely to help determine the pact’s fate.
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Donald Trump has indicated that a key backer of the AUKUS pact will play a central role in his administration if he wins next month’s election, easing fears about the fate of the deal.
The former president has not publicly expressed a view on the defence agreement, including Australia’s purchase of at least three nuclear-powered submarines from the US in the 2030s, sparking anxiety in Canberra as he edges closer to a stunning political comeback.
But Mr Trump last week dropped a strong hint that his ex-national security adviser Robert O’Brien would be appointed to his national security team if he returned to the White House.
Mr O’Brien separately declared that AUKUS was a “very important agreement” as he said the US needed “to have collective security against the Chinese in the Indo-Pacific”.
“The free world has to band together,” he said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, describing the pact as part of a “web of alliances … that will be a deterrent to China”.
He hit the campaign trail with Mr Trump’s running mate JD Vance in Arizona to spruik Mr Trump’s “peace-through-strength national security policy message”.
While AUKUS has received widespread bipartisan support in the US, some Republicans have raised concerns about selling nuclear submarines to Australia, given America’s industrial base has struggled to hit production targets to meet the US Navy’s needs.
But Mr O’Brien would be well-placed to convince Mr Trump to stick with the deal if he joined him in the White House.
The former president, asked by a radio host if he would name Mr O’Brien and two others to key posts, said: “A lot of the people that you like are going to be there, okay? And I can name all the people that you like and I like the same people … You’ll have those people.”
Mr O’Brien currently runs the American Global Strategies consulting firm which employs former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, one of the architects of AUKUS.
Earlier this year, after meeting with Mr Trump, Mr Morrison said the pact received a “warm reception” in their talks and he understood it was part of a “credible deterrent” to China.
“It’s a good deal – and he knows what a good deal is,” the former prime minister said.
Mr O’Brien, speaking in an interview last week, said the Chinese government was “relentless in their activities to displace the United States”.
“The only way that we can take on the Chinese is to have friends and allies. And I think we’re doing a good job of that in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
He praised AUKUS not only for the nuclear submarine agreement but for expanding co-operation between the US and Australia on intelligence, military exercises and basing.
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