In the wake of the July 26 Geelong Treaty bilateral agreement between the U.K. and Australia, as EIR News reported on July 28, the Trump administration announced on July 30 that it would complete its review of the AUKUS agreement—a trilateral agreement among Australia, the U.K. and the U.S.—in the autumn (of the Northern Hemisphere), reported Reuters. The defense deal will allow Australia to buy U.S. nuclear-powered submarines, worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The review into the 2021 deal struck during the Biden administration is being led by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby.
“Colby’s office said in a post on X on Wednesday (Tuesday EST) the review will be an ‘empirical and clear-eyed assessment’ of the deal.
“‘The Department anticipates completing the review in the fall,’ the post said.
“‘Its purpose will be to provide the President and his senior leadership team with a fact-based, rigorous assessment of the initiative.’”
Reuters also noted that, “Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser, said last year that submarines were a scarce, critical commodity, and U.S. industry could not produce enough to meet American demand.”
How this agreement figures into Trump’s Aug. 1 declaration of the deployment of nuclear submarines to be positioned in “the appropriate regions” is still under investigation.
