Donald Trump has strongly endorsed the Aukus pact and praised prime minister Anthony Albanese as a “great” leader, but the president’s navy secretary says the US may seek to “clarify some ambiguities” in the nuclear submarine deal.
Trump and Albanese also signed a multi-billion dollar agreement for Australia to supply the United States with critical minerals, amid a deepening trade war as China threatens to cut its supply of rare earth elements. But the president also downplayed any prospect of cutting tariffs on Australian goods.
“We do actually have a lot of submarines. We have the best submarines in the world, and we’re building a few more currently under construction, and now we’re starting we have it all set with Anthony [Albanese],” Trump said.
“We’ve worked on this long and hard, and we’re starting that process right now. I think it’s really moving along very rapidly, very well… we have them moving very quickly.”
In a wide-ranging 35-minute press conference at the White House, before his first formal meeting between the pair, Trump assured the future of Aukus and said America had no better friend than Australia, but told ambassador Kevin Rudd “I don’t like you” after his former comments about the president were brought up.
Rudd later apologised to Trump.
In comments nearly entirely positive about Australia and his relationship with the prime minister, Trump did not repeat previous demands for Albanese’s government to raise defence spending, and Albanese suggested Trump visit Australia for the President’s Cup golf tournament to be held in Melbourne in 2028.
Albanese met Trump for a long-awaited first bilateral sitdown on Monday morning local time (early hours of Tuesday morning Aedt) in the cabinet room of the White House. Nine months after Trump’s inauguration, and following several phone conversations between the pair, Albanese sat between the president and vice-president, JD Vance, at the cabinet room table in a meeting which also included war secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio, Rudd, and Australian ministers Tim Ayres and Madeleine King.
Trump hosted Albanese for a working lunch following their meeting.
Australia had sought an explicit endorsement of the Aukus pact and the $368bn plan for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines from the US, as well as relief from Trump’s trade tariffs. The signing of the critical minerals deal, by which Australia and the United States will each offer at least USD$1bn to projects in both countries, was seen as a major strategic win by Australia; Trump and Albanese signed the agreement in Trump’s cabinet room.
A framework agreement circulated by the Australian government said it would see the two countries work together on “coordinated investment to accelerate development of diversified, liquid, fair markets for critical minerals and rare earths”. The agreement says they will work together on mining and processing, including mobilising government and private sector support through guarantees, loans, or equity; offtake arrangements; insurance; or regulatory facilitation. The agreement will set price mechanisms including price floors, and also includes a commitment to establishing or boosting mechanisms to “review and deter” asset sales “on national security grounds.”
Albanese called the deal “a really significant day” which would take the Australia-US relationship “to the next level”.
“This is $8.5bn pipeline that we have ready to go. We’re just getting started,” Albanese said.
Trump added: “in about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them.”
Trump asked John Phelan, secretary of the navy, to speak about Aukus at the beginning of the meeting. Phelan called Australia “a very important ally of ours in the Indo-Pacific” and appeared to allude to the Henderson naval base in Fremantle, calling it “very important to our ability to project power with our allies.”
“I think what we’re really trying to do take this framework and improve it for all three parties, clarify some of the ambiguity that was in the prior agreement. So it should be a win-win for everybody,” he said.
Phelan provided no further detail. Asked for clarification later by Guardian Australia, Trump claimed they would be “minor details” and there “shouldn’t be any more clarifications… we’re just full steam ahead building.”
Asked about comments from his administration – including Hegseth – calling for a major boost to Australian defence spending, Trump instead praised Australia’s record in building “magnificent holding pads for the submarines”.
“I’d always like more, but they [Australia] have to do what they have to do. You can only do so much. I think they’ve been great,” he said.
“They’re building tremendous docking because they have a lot of ships and a lot of things happening. And I think their military has been very strong.”
Asked if Australia would get relief from trade tariffs, however, Trump indicated that would not be up for review, noting: “Australia pays among the lowest tariffs.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
