Even by the standards of the Trumpian promise, the unvarnished commitment to Australia on US nuclear submarines – “they’re getting them” – is entirely unreliable.
They are not the US president’s boats to give.
The decision on whether Australia ever receives a Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarine from America will not be Trump’s to make.
For all the powers being husbanded to this imperial presidency, there are still limits to the power of the Oval Office. Trump can’t simply will Aukus into being.
Of course, Aukus has always been as much a political agreement as a military one.
Australia’s political class has taken great succour from the fiercely supportive words from the current US president this week – “really moving along really rapidly, very well … full steam ahead” – but the practicalities, and the black letters of the Aukus legislation (not to mention the 22nd amendment), cannot be ignored.
If the US constitution is to be relied upon at all, Trump cannot be in office in 2031 when the decision will be taken whether or not to sell Australia a Virginia-class boat.
The US constitution is clear: presidents are limited to two terms of office. Trump’s second will expire at midday on 20 January 2029.
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Equally clear is the legislation passed by the US Congress: not later than 270 days before any boat is sold to Australia in 2032, the US commander-in-chief – the president of the day – must certify that America relinquishing a submarine “will not degrade the United States undersea capabilities”.
The US fleet currently has only three-quarters of the submarines it needs (49 boats of a force-level goal of 66). The US navy estimates it needs to be building Virginia-class submarines at a rate of two per year to meet its own defence requirements, and about 2.33 to have enough boats to sell any to Australia. It is currently building Virginia-class submarines at a rate of about 1.13 a year, senior admirals say.
If the US navy needs the submarine, it cannot be sold to Australia, regardless of how much the president might wish it. Despite the injection of billions of Australian dollars into America’s ailing shipbuilding industry, this fundamental condition appears increasingly impossible to meet.
Beyond the sclerotic rates of shipbuilding in the US, myriad complexities are still unaddressed.
Domestically in Australia, fundamental questions remain: how will these massive boats be crewed, supported, maintained, even welded together. Will they meet Australia’s defence needs when they arrive – the apex predator of today’s oceans, the prey of tomorrow’s technologies?
Where will the high-level nuclear waste they produce go? It will be toxic for millennia and a security risk. More than two years ago, the defence minister promised that the process for establishing a nuclear waste site on defence land “current or future” would be publicly revealed “within 12 months”. There has been nothing since.
Legislation also prohibits the US from transferring a submarine to Australia if Australia has not demonstrated the “domestic capacity to fully perform all the … activities necessary for the safe hosting and operation of nuclear-powered submarines”.
Promises of fealty to the deal might make for good politics, but they are only meaningful when they reflect something approximating reality.
Aukus faces monumental, perhaps insurmountable, hurdles. Those trying to implement it know that.
They know, too, that the Trump-Albanese meeting has not altered that reality one bit.
