US Congressman Joe Courtney, Co-Chair of the Friends of Australia Caucus, issued the following statement after meeting with Australia’s Defence Minister, Richard Marles, to discuss Congress’s ongoing commitment to strengthening the U.S.-Australia alliance as well as Australia’s $500 million investment into the U.S. submarine industrial base.
“Deputy Prime Minister Marles’ visit to Washington demonstrates Australia’s enduring commitment to strengthening our two nation’s alliance. We discussed Australia’s newly announced $500 million investment into the U.S. submarine industrial base, which was made possible by a law the Friends of Australia Caucus championed in the 2024 annual defence bill.
“Today’s payment strengthened the ties of our two nations and the AUKUS agreement, ensuring the mission will endure and the U.S. submarine industrial base can meet the demands of the security agreement. At every step of the way Australia has demonstrated AUKUS is a true partnership that the U.S. benefits from as much as our partners and allies in the region. I look forward to working with my counterparts on the Seapower Subcommittee to ensure this new investment is expeditiously made available to expand the supply chain, skill-up a talented workforce, and advance manufacturing technology,” Courtney said.
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I see a lot of statements from various in media who’ve always been against AUKUS speculating that Trump will not give the tinal sign off when the two refurbed BlockVI Virginia’s are due to be transferred to the RAN. He won’t even be around by then. Nor will most of the old warriors like Courtney.
I assume you mean Block IV. Block VI has not yet started production. The main problem, as I see it, is not so much political will but rather the ability of US industry to lift the build rate of Virginias from the current 1.3 per year to the required 2.3 per year.
Yes. My typo, thanks Kim.
In eight to ten years time, the USN likely moving on from legacy block IVs.
Therare a number of these subs which have been sitting for months or longer in places like SanDiego, awaiting a mandatory service cycle.
It’s not just the production of new boats from US yards but the lack of yards and skills for servicing, recertifying and returning existing vessels to sea.
The debatcle of the Congress during the Clinton era, selling off the USN’s yards to private industry just saw those yards repurposed for higher margin business, even real estate development. Skilled trades made redundant. That bean counting exercise a real false economy., now costing billions and putting war fighting capability at risk.
The remaining yards like HII / Electric Boat make a much higher margin on building new than doing maintenance.
Re-establishing maintenace yards ought to be a higher priorty given it will return more boats to operation than building new.
I thought a significant number of Australian shipyard workers in the US were supposed to be adding to that capability. After all, thats where our BlockIV will come from and as far a Biv Virginias go, we’ll need to service, not build.
You are correct in identifying the maintenance backlog as an even larger problem than increasing the new build Virginia rate.