Tom Minear: What if Donald Trump loves the AUKUS pact?

Amid the anxiety about the former president upending Australia’s submarine deal, the alternative is being ignored – and Tom Minear argues it might still be a problem for Anthony Albanese.

Does Donald Trump support selling nuclear submarines to Australia? It’s the $368 billion question that hasn’t been publicly posed to the former and potentially future US president.

Strangely enough, the closest thing we have to an answer is Trump’s reaction to the claim that he shared submarine secrets with Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt. He dismissed the story last year – except for the part where Pratt encouraged him to sell us nuclear vessels.

Trump said the US boats were the best “anywhere in the world”, he “liked creating jobs in America”, and the alternative would be for allies “to buy from Russia, China”.

Anthony Pratt, Donald Trump and Scott Morrison at one of the billionaire’s recycling plants in 2019. Picture: Adam Taylor

That’s not a bad sign for AUKUS, although it did nothing to dampen fears in Canberra about the fate of the pact under a second Trump administration.

While Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy was too diplomatic to acknowledge such anxiety last week, his visit to Washington DC was part of a growing push to bed down key initiatives between the US and its allies ahead of November’s election.

The irony, from an Australian perspective, is no one seems to be considering the alternative: what if Trump loves AUKUS?

There’s every chance he will, for the reasons mentioned above, but ultimately because he seems more interested in the power struggle with China than backing Ukraine or even Israel.

If so, Trump would inevitably express his affection for AUKUS in ways Anthony Albanese would find uncomfortable. The PM is clearly determined to avoid upsetting China to preserve the so-called “stabilisation” of Australia’s relationship. Trump would have no such tact.

Australia’s Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy with US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell. Picture: Supplied

Albanese has already had to hose down anti-AUKUS views in Labor’s left. Imagine how the comrades would react if Trump claimed our vessels were part of an anti-China war machine.

There was already plenty of hand-wringing this month when Kurt Campbell, one of Joe Biden’s top diplomats, suggested AUKUS submarines would have “enormous implications … including in cross-strait circumstances” over Taiwan.

That this was in any way considered controversial speaks volumes about the Albanese government’s failure to articulate the pact’s purpose. As opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said last week: “We must speak more honestly with the Australian people.”

Australia’s ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd did so in an address on deterring China over Taiwan. But he offered a disclaimer – he was sharing “very much my own views” rather than the government’s “official position” – because no minister would be as candid in Canberra.