WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — President Joe Biden met on Monday with two of America’s closest allies to announce Australia will purchase nuclear-powered attack submarines from the U.S. amid growing concerns about China’s influence in the region.
According to The Guardian, non-government estimates have put the program’s cost between $116 billion and $171 billion.
Biden flew to San Diego for talks with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on an 18-month-old nuclear partnership given the acronym AUKUS.
China has argued the AUKUS deal violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It contends that the transfer of nuclear weapons materials from a nuclear-weapon state to a non-nuclear-weapon state is a “blatant” violation of the spirit of the pact. Australian officials have pushed back against the criticism, arguing that they are working to acquire nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed, submarines.
Biden, appearing sensitive to tensions with China and its criticism of the deal, stressed that the submarines are “nuclear powered, not nuclear armed.”
“These boats will not have any nuclear weapons of any kind of them,” he said at an outdoor ceremony at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, where he was flanked by Albanese and Sunak. Two submarines, the USS Missouri and the USS Charlotte, were tied up at the next pier in the Pacific Ocean behind the leaders.
“The question is really how does China choose to respond because Australia is not backing away from what it sees to be doing in its own interests here,” said Charles Edel, a senior adviser and Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told The Associated Press. “I think that probably from Beijing’s perspective they’ve already counted out Australia as a wooable mid country. It seemed to have fully gone into the U.S. camp.”
Fulfilling the orders, however, may be a headache for the U.S.
Bloomberg reports that existing orders of the Virginia-class subs are already behind schedule and costs continue to grow.
The nuclear submarine plan, according to CNN reporting, will create 20,000 Australian jobs over the next 30 years.
Biden is also scheduled to meet individually with Albanese and Sunak to coordinate strategy on Russia’s war in Ukraine, the global economy and more.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
