By David Crowe and Matthew Knott
London: The British government will sign a 50-year treaty with Australia to cement the AUKUS defence pact in a massive strategic and financial deal, backing the plan when it is under extraordinary pressure from US President Donald Trump and his advisers.
The treaty will include a $41 billion pledge to scale up industry in both countries to build new submarine fleets with a common design, amid fears that Trump will undercut AUKUS and leave Australia and the UK exposed.
Defence Minister Richard Marles, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and UK Defence Secretary John Healey at Admiralty House in Kirribilli, Sydney on Friday.Credit: Steven Siewert
But the deal will require a soaring investment from Australia to ramp up construction in the UK on the new design for nuclear-propelled submarines, after it made another $800 million payment to the US to support its shipbuilding.
The new treaty is a significant move from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his British counterpart Sir Keir Starmer because it counters the open questions in the Trump administration about whether AUKUS will work.
Albanese and Starmer have formed a personal friendship that helps deepen support for AUKUS in both governments at a crucial point when Trump advisers are reviewing the three-way defence pact struck in 2021.
The new treaty will be signed when UK Defence Secretary John Healey and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy visit Australia from Friday for annual AUKMIN talks, just as a Royal Navy aircraft carrier visits Darwin during the Talisman Sabre defence exercise.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said the agreement was “as significant a treaty [as] has been signed between our two countries since Federation”.
Healey said: “It’s a treaty to build the most powerful, the most advanced attack submarines our two navies have ever had. It’s a treaty that strengthens NATO, as well as security in the Indo-Pacific. It’s a treaty that will … safeguard the security of our children and our children’s children to come.”
Marles said the three AUKUS nations were forging ahead with the partnership even as the Trump administration reviewed the pact.
“A new government undertaking a review is the most natural thing in the world,” he said. “We welcome the review which is being undertaken by the Trump administration.”
The four ministers are meeting for annual AUKMIN talks.Credit: Steven Siewert
Trump’s approach to AUKUS is in doubt while the Pentagon conducts a review led by Department of Defence undersecretary Elbridge Colby, a critic of the agreement. There is no formal deadline for the review.
Announcing the treaty in London, the UK government said the outcome would be worth up to £20 billion for the UK – about $41 billion – in terms of exports over 25 years. It said this would create more than 7000 jobs in British shipyards.
While the UK statement did not specify the payments from Australia, the transfer of technology is a fundamental part of AUKUS because the new subs are to be powered by nuclear reactors made by Rolls-Royce in the UK.
The Australian and UK governments have already made joint investments in the Rolls-Royce nuclear technology for the Royal Navy, part of a $4 billion spending promise from Australia to help the UK.
The nuclear power systems depend on long-term defence sharing with the US under agreements dating to 1958, making Trump’s support a pivotal factor for the AUKUS plan.
Healey emphasised that AUKUS strengthened global security and was one of the UK’s most important defence deals.
“This historic treaty confirms our AUKUS commitment for the next half century,” he said. “Through the treaty, we are supporting high-skilled, well-paid jobs for tens of thousands of people in both the UK and Australia.”
Lammy said the UK and Australia relationship was “like no other” and had a real impact on global peace.
“Our new bilateral AUKUS treaty is an embodiment of that – safeguarding a free and open Indo-Pacific whilst catalysing growth for both our countries,” he said.
Lammy’s mention of the Indo-Pacific highlights a contested aspect of the three-way AUKUS agreement, given reports that Colby has questioned why the UK has sent an aircraft carrier to the Pacific.
When a British defence team met Colby and others in the US capital last month, according to the report, he told them they should turn back an aircraft carrier they had sent east.
“He was basically saying, ‘You have no business being in the Indo-Pacific’,” one unnamed official told Politico.
The special adviser on AUKUS to the UK government, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, said earlier this month that he believed the US Navy was “completely committed” to the pact despite fears the Pentagon would rethink the plan.
Colby and other AUKUS sceptics in the Trump administration have argued that the UK should focus on the Atlantic and leave security in the Indo-Pacific to the US, while top British officials have emphasised that security threats are now global.
More than 40,000 military personnel from 19 countries are in and near Australia for the Talisman Sabre exercise, which runs from July 13 to August 4. The UK has deployed 3000 of those personnel.
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