SYDNEY, Dec 4 (Reuters) – Defence Minister Richard Marles said Australia had received the United States’ review of the AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership and is “working through it”.
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, and also involves Britain.
The review had sparked alarm in Canberra, but concerns were eased when Trump signaled his support for the programme in a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the White House in October.
“We are in receipt of the AUKUS review now. We’re working through the AUKUS review, and we very much thank the United States for providing it to us,” Marles told reporters on Thursday. “What’s really important here is the United States is completely supportive of AUKUS.”
The review was led by the Pentagon’s Under Secretary Elbridge Colby, who said last year that submarines were a scarce, critical commodity, and U.S. industry could not produce enough to meet American demand.
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.
Australia announced on Monday that it will reorganise its defence bureaucracy, forming a Defence Delivery Agency that reports directly to ministers, to improve defence spending and speed up delivery of projects.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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