Latest news with #Aukus
Bloomberg
21 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Adnoc's Santos Takeover Bid a Regulatory Test
Good morning, it's Paul-Alain Hunt in the Melbourne bureau with the headlines to start your Friday. The ASX is set to open in the red, but first... Today's must-reads: • Adnoc, Santos and regulatory risk • Australian funds cut US Treasuries holdings • What happens if Aukus falls apart? Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.'s bullish US$18.7 billion takeover bid for Santos will weigh who controls critical energy infrastructure against the need to address a looming domestic gas shortfall. Australia's world-first social media ban for under-16s moved closer to implementation after a key trial found that checking a user's age is technologically possible and can be integrated into existing services.
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
What Happens If Trump Bails on Aukus?
Never miss an episode. Follow The Bloomberg Australia Podcast today. The US has announced a review of the Aukus defense deal, casting fresh doubts on whether the country will follow through on its pact with Australia and the UK. This week on the podcast, Rebecca Jones asks reporter Ben Westcott to explain what's behind the review and what the potential consequences are for Australia, the Asia Pacific, and China's increasing presence in the region.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Ditching Aukus would harm US, close ally tells Trump
A close ally of Donald Trump has urged the US president not to ditch the Aukus programme after the Pentagon said it was reviewing collaboration on submarines with the UK and Australia. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor of Virginia, said he hoped shipbuilders in his state would 'have a chance' to continue to 'build for our allies' and played down the chance of the project being scrapped. The Pentagon is currently reviewing Aukus, a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, involving collaboration on submarines, AI and quantum technology that is worth £176 billion over 30 years. The programme was previously considered a pillar of Washington security policy, but came under review shortly after Mr Trump took office in January. The US government was examining it as 'part of ensuring that this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the president's 'America first' agenda', a Pentagon official confirmed last week. But Sir Keir Starmer said at the G7 summit in Canada earlier this week that he did not have 'any doubt' that Aukus would 'progress'. Mr Youngkin, who visited London on Wednesday for a ceremony to unveil a restored statue of George Washington in Trafalgar Square, acknowledged that ending the programme would harm shipbuilders in his state. 'Our militaries have not only integrated and executed very well together over centuries, but I also believe that the sharing of technology has been really important,' he told The Telegraph. Newport News Shipbuilding, a company in Virginia, is involved in manufacturing submarines for the project, while Lockheed Martin, which builds the missiles used by the submarines, has a major site in the state's city of Manassas. 'We build a lot of submarines and, in fact, build a part of every submarine in the US military,' he said. 'We, of course, would like to be able to build more submarines, and so I hope we have a chance to do so.' He added that while 'long-standing policies occasionally have to be reviewed', the latest assessment of Aukus was 'just a matter of stepping back and looking at shipbuilding capacity'. Mr Youngkin, tipped as a future presidential contender, shocked political observers when he won the 2021 gubernatorial race in Virginia - a state Joe Biden won in the previous year's presidential election. In the 2024 presidential race, he acted as a surrogate for the Trump campaign in the state, although it was won by a 5.8 per cent margin by Kamala Harris. The Aukus programme has become a major part of the 'special relationship' between the UK and US since it was announced by Mr Biden and Boris Johnson in 2021. It is designed to boost Western power in the Indo-Pacific region and contains two 'pillars', the first of which is to help Australia obtain nuclear-powered attack submarines. The three countries announced in 2023 that a new nuclear-powered submarine class would be built in the UK and Australia, while the US will sell Australia three second-hand Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s. The second pillar of the agreement allows for collaboration between the three countries on six technologies, including AI, quantum computing, hypersonic missiles and electronic warfare. However, the idea has previously been opposed by Elbridge Colby, a senior Pentagon official appointed by Mr Trump, who said that the US should not give away 'crown jewel assets' like nuclear submarines. Mr Colby is leading the review to ensure that all Pentagon-backed programmes are aligned with Mr Trump's 'America First' policy. Mr Youngkin also told The Telegraph that the UK's unwillingness to directly defend Israel from Iranian attacks would not damage its relationship with the US. 'There is a recognition that the actions that right now are resulting in real violence around the world need to be resolved, and the way they're going to be resolved is through strength,' he said. 'I'm hopeful that President Trump's urging of everyone coming to the table and settling this is clear, but also the fact that the UK…while it has taken a different tone, is still very much one of our closest allies.'
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Is the Aukus submarine deal dead in the water under Trump?
The flagship project of Australia's future maritime defence architecture, Aukus , has been placed under review in Washington. For some time, muted speculation about the status of Aukus Pillar I, an A$368 billion (US$238.5 billion) deal between Canberra, Washington and London to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs), has been circulating among analysts and policymakers in Australia amid the upheaval of the Trump administration. Advertisement In Canberra, the government has maintained an anxious silence, most likely in an attempt to limit any noise that may land unfavourably on US President Donald Trump's desk. Now it is clear that a review by the Australian government of Aukus Pillar I must be forthcoming. A starting point will be a potential conditional rise in Australia's defence spending on further cooperation with the Pentagon. Elbridge Colby, US undersecretary of defence for policy, is advocating a 5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) minimum defence spending threshold among allies, 'not only in Europe but in Asia as well'. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth has stated that 'Australia should increase its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of its GDP as soon as possible'. Australia now spends 2 per cent of GDP on defence. But even with a strengthening of funding for Aukus platforms, projections for 2029 indicate only a modest increase to 2.25 per cent. This spending hike is certain to rub up against existing agreements under the Aukus 'Optimal Pathway', which will see the United States sell three used Virginia-class SSNs to Australia in 2032, 2035 and 2038. Advertisement The feasibility of the Optimal Pathway is quickly diminishing amid the hype around escalating costs and the limited capacity of the US defence industrial base to meet ambitious delivery timelines.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Bloomberg Daybreak Asia: Mideast Unrest, Fed Decision Preview
Oil climbed and most stocks in Asia followed losses on Wall Street as concerns mounted that an escalation of tensions in the Middle East will trigger a more direct US involvement. West Texas Intermediate crude rose as much as 1.1% in early trading Wednesday after settling at the highest in almost five months the previous day. US equity futures slipped, as did Australia's benchmark index and Hong Kong futures. Staying with geopolitics, The White House's review of the Aukus pact — a security arrangement between the US, UK and Australia — is rattling one of Washington's closest alliances, and playing right into China's hands. It sends yet another signal that America First might just mean everyone else alone. First announced by former President Joe Biden in 2021, the multibillion-dollar deal commits Washington and London to help Canberra develop a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines over a 30-year period. It was designed to help counter Beijing's growing influence in the Indo-Pacific. For more, we turn to Bloomberg Opinion columnist Karishma Vaswani. Plus - Federal Reserve officials are widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged for a fourth straight meeting on Wednesday, reiterating they want more clarity on the economic impact of a wide array of government policy changes before adjusting borrowing costs. Policymakers have warned President Donald Trump's tariffs could boost inflation and unemployment, but so far, steady hiring and cooling inflation have allowed Fed officials to keep rates unchanged this year. We speak to Bill Campbell, Global Bond Portfolio Manager at DoubleLine.
