The United States will conclude its review of a defence pact with the United Kingdom and Australia by autumn in the northern hemisphere, a senior Pentagon official’s office said on Wednesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration said in June it had launched a formal review into the AUKUS defence deal – worth hundreds of billions of dollars – that will allow Australia to acquire U.S. nuclear-powered submarines, causing alarm in Canberra.
The review into the 2021 deal struck during the Biden administration is being led by Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby, a public critic of the pact.
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.”
AUKUS is Australia’s biggest-ever defence project, with Canberra committing to spend A$368 billion ($240 billion) over three decades to the programme, which includes billions of dollars of investment in the U.S. submarine production base.
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.
Australia, which this month paid A$800 million to the U.S. in the second instalment under AUKUS, has maintained it is confident the pact will proceed.
Australia and Britain on Saturday signed a bilateral 50-year submarine pact, which they said builds on the AUKUS alliance with the U.S.
Australia-UK AUKUS Pact
Australia announced on Saturday that it had signed a treaty with Britain to strengthen cooperation on the AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership over the next 50 years.
The AUKUS pact, agreed upon by Australia, Britain and the U.S. in 2021, aims to provide Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines from the next decade to counter China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said in a statement that the bilateral treaty was signed with Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey on Saturday after a meeting in the city of Geelong, in Victoria state.
($1 = 1.5323 Australian dollars)
(With inputs from Reuters)
