Trump pick for Pentagon says selling submarines to Australia would be 'crazy' if Taiwan tensions flare
Source: The Guardian
Trump pick for Pentagon says selling submarines to Australia would be ‘crazy’ if Taiwan tensions flare
Nominee for undersecretary for defense policy says Aukus deal to deliver Virginia class submarines could leave US sailors ‘vulnerable’
Ben Doherty
Sat 8 Mar 2025 19.00 GMT
Last modified on Sat 8 Mar 2025 21.05 GMT
One of Donald Trump’s top picks for the Pentagon says selling submarines to Australia under the Aukus agreement poses a “very difficult problem” for the US and could endanger its own sailors.
Elbridge Colby, Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy – the number three post at the US Department of Defense – has previously admitted he is “skeptical” about Aukus and said this week he is worried selling submarines to Australian could leave US sailors “vulnerable” because the vessels won’t be “in the right place in the right time”.
In written and verbal testimony to the Senate armed service committee nomination hearings, Colby affirmed Australia was a “core ally” of the US – “with us even in our less-advisable wars” – and that he supported “the idea of empowering our Australian allies”.
“It is a great idea for them to have attack submarines.”
But, Colby argued, there remained “a very real threat of a conflict in the coming years”, particularly along the so-called first island chain – the first arc of islands out from the east Asian continental mainland coast – including Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and Borneo.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/09/trump-pick-for-pentagon-says-selling-submarines-to-australia-would-be-crazy-if-taiwan-tensions-flare
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