Asked about AUKUS, Trump replies: ‘What does that mean?’

Donald Trump appeared to be unaware of Australia’s new military pact with the United States and Britain during a meeting with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at the White House.

The US president was asked directly by a British reporter in the Oval Office at the start of the meeting: “Will you be discussing AUKUS with the prime minister?”

Trump replied: “What does that mean?”

The reporter then explained it was the Australia-US-British defence technology alliance, to which Trump said: “Well, we’ll be discussing that. We have another great relationship. And you have, too. With Australia. Yeah, we’ve had a very good relationship with Australia.”

Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia has committed to paying the United States $US3 billion ($4.8 billion) to enhance the US submarine industry’s capacity. In return, Washington will sell Australia several Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines, expected to be delivered in the early 2030s. Additionally, Britain and Australia will collaborate on the development of a new AUKUS-class submarine in the years to come.

Speaking to reporters in Sydney on Friday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Trump’s AUKUS slip was not a concern.

“There’s a lot of acronyms in this business and we all get thrown at them from time to time,” he said.

“Donald Trump went on ... [to say] he wanted to speak about the really important and positive relationship with Australia. That is consistent with the discussions that I’ve had with President Trump that included, of course, talking about AUKUS which we spoke about during our discussions.”

US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said earlier this month that Trump was “very aware” and supportive of the nuclear submarine deal, after Australia confirmed its first $800 million payment.

The AUKUS pact, and the amount of money Australia has pledged to spend, has been a target of fierce criticism from former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Keating.

Keating said last year that Australia risked becoming the “51st state of the United States” under the agreement, which sent the wrong message to China.

Turnbull, the broker of a previous deal with France that was controversially scrapped, said the deal abandoned Australia’s sovereignty in terms of submarines, and would be “completely dependent on what happens in the United States as to whether we get them now”.

In the same press conference, Trump also said he was confident that Russian leader Vladimir Putin would “keep his word” if an agreement were reached to end Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Trump said going through the “Russia hoax” ordeal gave him confidence that he could trust Putin in talks about the war in Ukraine that the Kremlin launched three years ago. Early in Trump’s first term as president, the Republican was dogged by a special counsel-led investigation into the FBI’s probe of Russian interference in his 2016 campaign for the White House.

Starmer extended a state visit invitation to Trump on behalf of King Charles, and Trump accepted. The invitation for a second state visit – Trump already received the honour during his first term – was “historic” and “unprecedented”, Starmer said.

The UK prime minister was visiting the White House to try to convince Trump that a lasting peace in Ukraine would endure only if Kyiv and European leaders were at the table as negotiations moved forward with Moscow.

His trip, coming a few days after French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit, reflects the mounting concern felt by much of Europe that Trump’s aggressive push to find an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine signals his willingness to concede too much to Putin.

“We’re going to do the best we can to make the best deal we can for both sides,” Trump said as he held the first cabinet meeting of his second term on Thursday.

US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House.Credit: AP

“For Ukraine, we’re going to try very hard to make a good deal so that they can get as much [land] back as possible.”

But the Republican president’s rapprochement with Russia has unsettled America’s historic allies in Europe. They have found themselves on their heels with Trump returning to the White House with a determination to dramatically make over US foreign policy to correspond with his “America First” world view.

Trump’s meeting with Starmer came a day before a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The two leaders are expected to sign a contentious agreement that would give the US access to Ukraine’s critical minerals, which are used in the aerospace, defence and nuclear industries. Zelensky had chafed at signing off on an agreement without specific security guarantees from Washington.

Asked if he still believed Zelensky was a “dictator”, the term he used for the Ukrainian leader last week, Trump said: “Did I say that?”

Trump was noncommittal about any coming American security guarantees. “I’m not going to make security guarantees ... very much,” Trump said. “We’re going to have Europe do that.”

With AP

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