This was published 6 months ago
Deal or no deal: What Trump 2.0 could mean for our nuclear submarines
Donald Trump is known for scrapping international partnerships as president. Experts say the defence pact appeals to the volatile dealmaker, but he may try to squeeze more cash out of Australia.
Donald Trump was no longer president when the US signed the AUKUS pact with Australia and the UK.Credit: Artwork: Matthew Absalom-Wong
When Donald Trump came to power in 2017, he moved swiftly to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership and the nuclear deal with Iran. Trump seemed to delight in tearing up the policies of his predecessor Barack Obama and challenging the conventional wisdom of the Washington foreign policy establishment.
What, then, would a re-elected Trump do with one of his successor Joe Biden’s major strategic initiatives, the AUKUS defence pact with Australia and the United Kingdom?
After scrapping Australia’s submarine contract with France’s Naval Group in 2021, both major parties have gone all in on AUKUS, leaving the nation even more dependent on its most important security partner. If the United States does not deliver the three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines it has promised, Australia could be left with a gaping undersea capability gap just as the Indo-Pacific becomes more dangerous and contested.
Hugh White, an emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, doubts that Trump will maintain Biden’s commitment to AUKUS.
From left: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the AUKUS anouncement in San Diego in 2023.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“There are lots of reasons to think that AUKUS is not Trump’s kind of deal,” says White, one of the country’s most prominent sceptics of the AUKUS plan.
“Trump will be very inclined to scrap anything Biden puts his name to, and he will be asking, ‘What’s in this for America, and what is Australia giving us?’ A Trump administration would make an already risky deal even more risky.”
The strategic rationale that gave birth to the defence pact is clear, even if it is rarely stated publicly by the leaders of the three nations: to deter China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. Surely, AUKUS would appeal to Trump given his longstanding hostility to Beijing? Not so fast. White notes that while Trump is often described in shorthand as “anti-China”, this is accurate mostly in the economic sphere.
“I have never heard him articulate the view that America should defend its leadership in East Asia,” White says. “He wants to defend jobs in American factories. It is entirely consistent with his world view to be economically protectionist and strategically isolationist.”
The dealmaker
Many other analysts are significantly more optimistic about the prospects for AUKUS under Trump. “There are grounds to worry about what Trump might do if he were back in office, but AUKUS is unlikely to be one of them,” says Richard Fontaine, who served as a senior official on Asia policy in George W. Bush’s administration and now runs the influential Centre for a New American Security think tank in Washington.
“I think it’s such a win-win and I think would be perceived that way if a Trump administration was to come back into office. The chances that AUKUS would survive a political transition in the US – just as it survived one in Australia – are very high.”
Nick Warner, who served as head of Australia’s foreign intelligence organisation, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, during Trump’s presidency, is also confident. “I think Trump the dealmaker will say this is a good deal,” Warner told a conference organised by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra earlier this month.
Similarly, Arthur Sinodinos, who was Australia’s ambassador to the US during Trump’s final year as president, predicts: “I don’t think Trump will come in and tear it up because it was a Biden initiative. I think AUKUS will be OK.”
Why such confidence? Sinodinos points out that Trump has a natural fondness for Anglophone countries like the UK and Australia, which should make him well-disposed to AUKUS. Australia fared better than almost any other country during Trump’s previous term, winning exemptions from steel and aluminium tariffs and maintaining an Obama-era refugee resettlement deal.
Trump has regularly threatened to cut off US support for “freeloading” allies – especially in Europe, but also South Korea and Japan. Notably, he has never put Australia in this category. After fighting alongside the US in every war since World War II, Australia is pumping $4.5 billion into the American shipbuilding industry to ramp up its capacity to manufacture submarines. American laws had to be changed to facilitate the cash injection, reflecting the unique nature of such a financial transfer.
“Trump wants allies to spend more, do more, make themselves more capable,” says Peter Dean, head of defence and foreign policy at the United States Studies Centre. “That’s what AUKUS is all about. It ticks all of Trump’s boxes.”
Dean believes the strategic logic behind AUKUS is so strong that it will survive a Trump return to office. Strong bipartisan support for the deal in Congress, and the Biden administration’s efforts to embed it into the Pentagon and State Department, also augur well for its future, he says.
A grab for more cash
But with a leader as volatile and transactional as Trump, one can never rest easy. “There’s always a risk with someone who’s as Machiavellian as Trump,” Dean says. “If it becomes a personal bugbear of his because it’s seen as a Biden initiative, then it’s at risk.”
Mike Green, a former top Asia policy adviser to George W. Bush, believes that AUKUS is likely to survive a transition to Trump. He points to the fact the Pentagon and State Department are likely to be packed with “Asia-firsters” who want to shift American military resources from Europe to Asia to tackle China. But Green warns: “The wrong comment by the wrong politician in Australia about Donald Trump, and he might get his back up, and then you’re spending a lot of time trying to save AUKUS,” he warns. “So don’t mess it up.”
Trump has not commented publicly on AUKUS. When Brexit champion Nigel Farage asked him about the pact during a March television interview, Trump drew a blank, leading Farage to pivot to a question about Australia’s US ambassador Kevin Rudd.
The first indication of how he may feel came after he met former prime minister Scott Morrison, who spearheaded the creation of AUKUS, in June. Morrison reported that Trump gave the pact a “warm reception” during their meeting.
“There seems to be a presumption that somehow former president Trump wouldn’t support AUKUS, but there’s absolutely no basis for that,” Morrison says. He notes that the only hesitation about AUKUS in Congress has been the slow rate of American submarine production.
“I’m absolutely confident that a re-elected president Trump and his defence secretary would be lifting the tempo of nuclear submarine construction,” Morrison argues.
“They are very cognisant of the threat of China in the Indo-Pacific and the need for more nuclear-powered submarines to deal with that threat.”
A widespread view is that, even if Trump doesn’t discard AUKUS altogether, he will try to squeeze more money out of Australia along the way. After all, the Art of the Deal author believes in his mastery of negotiations.
“Trump would keep AUKUS, but he would massage it to suit his interests and priorities,” Bruce Wolpe, who served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress, predicted in his book Trump’s Australia, published last year.
A US-made Virginia-class attack submarine.Credit: US Navy
“Trump will be looking for commercial advantage for the United States as the agreement is implemented — especially with respect to the contracts and delivery associated with the submarines. The transaction costs could be significant.”
White believes Trump could easily say, “‘If Biden asked for US$3 billion ($4.5 billion), I will ask for $6 billion ($9 billion).’ He will try to negotiate the deal.”
Beyond asking for money, he predicts Trump and his senior officials will want an explicit commitment from Australia that it would fight alongside the US in a war against China.
“He may agree to AUKUS in broad terms, but make it much more expensive for us financially and strategically,” White says. “That will call into question the viability of the whole endeavour.”
Dean says the biggest risk Trump would pose to AUKUS is if he seeks to renegotiate the submarine transfer deal. Not only could this cost Australian taxpayers more money, but it could stymie progress on the so-called “pillar two” of AUKUS. This relates to collaboration on advanced technologies such as hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. This aspect of the pact is still in a formative stage, but many defence experts believe it will ultimately prove to be more transformational and beneficial than the submarine deal.
“If Trump gets obsessed with pillar one, it would slow pillar two down, potentially to a crawl,” Dean says. “That’s the real worry over the short term.”
Rudd has been working overtime on his contacts in Washington, including potential key figures in a second Trump administration. These include Trump’s former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, both of whom could return to senior roles in a future administration and have praised the AUKUS pact. A contrarian voice could be former Trump adviser Eldridge Colby, who has said it would be “crazy” for the US to provide Australia with submarines when it does not have enough of its own.
Even if Trump signs up to AUKUS in principle, Australia will need to engage in energetic advocacy to ensure his administration is focused on driving the submarine project forward amid an array of other priorities.
‘This is business’
Former senior Defence official Peter Jennings says conventional diplomacy will not cut it when it comes to Trump. “[Prime Minister Anthony] Albanese should go to Trump’s Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago and hand over a gold-plated model of the future AUKUS submarine,” he wrote earlier this year. “[Defence Minister and Deputy PM] Richard Marles should be there too, along with his golf clubs, and both of them should putt for their country.”
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who spearheaded the French submarine deal, is no fan of AUKUS. But his advice on how to deal with Trump, based on his experience, has import for those who want to see it succeed.
“You’ve got to remember what is on the tin: America first, America first,” Turnbull told an audience in Canberra this month. “So, if we want to get good outcomes from the United States, we’ve got to make it very clear that it is in America’s interest and why.
“Talking about 100 years of mateship and the Battle of Fromelles and all that is great for the press conference, but doesn’t matter a hill of beans to Donald Trump. Not a hill of beans. This is business.”
In other words, avoid high-minded and sentimental rhetoric about supporting allies and maintaining the global rules-based order. Pitch AUKUS as a self-interested way for Trump to boost blue-collar jobs in the US, revive American manufacturing and deter China.
Morrison warns that the strategic rationale for AUKUS should not be lost, even as the Albanese government works to stabilise relations with China and spruik the job-creating benefits of AUKUS. Albanese has said the submarine plan is as much about providing economic prosperity as national security.
Morrison says: “If AUKUS is promoted as being principally about Australian jobs rather than countering the threat of an adversary in the Indo-Pacific, then why would the United States care? They have their own US jobs to worry about. If we are seen as stepping back from the primary purpose of AUKUS, then that could risk partner support for AUKUS.”
It will ultimately not be Trump, or Biden, who decides whether Australia receives the Virginia-class submarines from the US. That will be up to whoever occupies the White House in 2031. Legislation passed by the Congress last year will require the president to certify that the transfer will not degrade America’s undersea capabilities.
The next four years, however, will be crucial to determining whether such a commitment can be made.
Lifting the capacity of the US industrial base will require intense focus and competence. Would a Trump administration be up to the task?
When it comes to Trump and AUKUS, Australians should not panic, but they certainly should not relax.
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