AUKUS: Republican Senator John Wicker expects congressional approval by end of year
After blocking critical legislation to allow the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, John Wicker expects full congressional approval for AUKUS by the end of the year.
Republican senator John Wicker, who last week held up critical US legislation that would enable the transfer of nuclear powered submarines to Australia, said he expected the impasse to be resolved by the end of the year, enough time to facilitate the landmark AUKUS security pact.
Senator Wicker, the ranking member of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, refused to allow a special amendment to proceed in the upper house unless the Biden administration promised to boost spending on the US submarine industrial base, which is struggling to meet congressional production targets.
“There is strong bipartisan support for the AUKUS deal; I am calling on President Biden to show leadership and send Congress a request for the resources necessary to expand the US submarine industrial base to support the needs of the United States and Australia for years to come,” he said.
“That is the key that will unlock the potential of AUKUS, and I am confident we can get it done by the end of this year,” he told The Australian via email.
As part of the AUKUS agreement, announced in September 2021, the navy is meant to acquire between three and five Virginia-class US submarines by the early 2030s, and the government will pay US$3 billion to the US to help expand its submarine building capacity.
“It makes sense to be sure we have enough submarines for our own security needs before we endorse that pillar of the [AUKUS] agreement,” Senator Wicker said last week after blocking the amendment.
“The president needs to submit a supplemental request to give us an adequate number of submarines,” he added, without putting a figure on how much extra funding would be required.
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week signed off on the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines to the navy and granted Australia a rare 20-year exemption from tough US defence technology export controls.
“We are actually really encouraged by the pace at which this is proceeding through the Congress, the attention that it is receiving,” Defence Minister Richard Marles said last week in response to the hold up.
Republican Congressman Rob Wittman told defence publication Breaking News earlier this month that he would add an amendment in the House of Representatives to prevent the transfer of more than two Virginia class submarines to Australia until the US submarine production increased to three per year, up from around 1.2.
The Biden administration’s need for congressional approval for the AUKUS submarine deal has given Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, added political leverage as the two major parties squabble over the details of this year’s US$850bn annual defence bill.
Democrat senator Bob Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which had earlier approved the AUKUS measure, slammed senator Wicker’s veto as “foolish”.
The usually bipartisan National Defence Authorisation Act remains in limbo in congress after Republican members insisted the Pentagon cease abortion funding and pare back ‘diversity’ training, alongside demands for further funding for submarines.
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