Great news for DUR... the last line is also a great tailwind for the company's long term growth. @zhanginu
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Trump backs AUKUS as Australia tips $800m into US coffers
AFR, 8 February 2025
Donald Trump backs the $368 billion US-Australia submarine deal and is committed to ensuring off-the-shelf boats are delivered on time, his top defence official says.US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth hosted Defence Minister Richard Marles in Washington on Saturday in his first meeting with a foreign counterpart since being appointed on January 29.
The pair primarily discussed the trilateral AUKUS alliance including the nuclear-powered submarines deal that amounts to Australia’s largest capital purchase in history.Hegseth offered the first indication of Trump’s support for the AUKUS deal in the absence of any comment from the returning president and fears new negotiations of the massive agreement could be ordered.“The president is very aware, supportive of AUKUS,” Hegseth told reporters during his meeting with Marles.
“(He) recognises the importance of the defence industrial base.”Ahead of the meeting, Australia announced it had made the first of six $US500 million ($797 million) payments to boost the capacity of the troubled US submarine industry.Australia is to buy between three and five off-the-shelf Virginia-class boats in the early 2030s as it prepares a domestic industry.But US ship builders have long been failing to even produce the two-submarines-a-year the US government has been procuring itself, let alone Australia’s order.Hegseth said he “sure hopes” his country could fulfil the deal as Marles described the injection as a “a very unique and significant step” in the alliance.In a later press conference, Marles would not say if the US had indicated it would ask for more cash.“This is the agreement that we have,” he said.“We are really happy with the conversations that we’ve had with the Trump administration in relation to this.“The optimal pathway - which is now underpinned in a trilateral treaty between our three countries (including the UK), which I signed in Washington back in August of last year - is an agreement that is going to endure over decades.”
Australia’s military budget is expected to rise to 2.3 per cent of GDP by 2034, putting it in line with current spending by the UK and ahead of France and China.
(20min delay)