Trump familiar with and supportive of AUKUS, Hegseth says

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last Friday President Donald Trump would support the AUKUS agreement with Australia.

The defense secretary made the remarks while meeting his Australian counterpart, Defense Minister Richard Marles, at the Pentagon.

Hegseth said this after Australia made its first payment of $500 million last week toward the $3 billion investment promised to the United States.

“The president … recognizes the importance of the defense industrial base,” Hegseth said about AUKUS in opening remarks at the meeting, according to the Department of Defense. “It enhances our ability in the [subsurface] space, but also our allies and partners … this is not a mission in the Indo-Pacific that America can undertake by itself. It has to [include] robust allies and partners. Technology sharing and subs are a huge part of it.” 

There has been uncertainty about how Trump would approach AUKUS given his “transactional” governing style and promise to cut government spending, according to the Australian Lowy Institute in a December interview with the Joe Biden-era head of the National Security Council Jake Sullivan. However, Sullivan said he “has confidence” the agreement can endure under Trump.

“Australia is directly contributing to the U.S. submarine industrial base so that we can build out this submarine capability, supply Australia in the nearer term with Virginia class submarines and then in the longer term with the AUKUS class submarine,” Sullivan said of the AUKUS agreement. “The United States is benefiting from burden sharing, exactly the kind of thing that Mr. Trump has talked a lot about.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) had also told the Exchange Monitor in January that AUKUS would “probably” be in a “good position” under Trump.

AUKUS is a trilateral agreement among Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. In the 2030s the U.S. plans to sell Australia three to five used and new Virginia-class submarines. Australia plans to build its own SSN-AUKUS boats the following decade. 

All three nations are to develop a platform called “SSN-AUKUS,” which is expected to be ready in the U.K. in the 2030s and Australia in the 2040s, according to the Department of Defense.