WASHINGTON
\nUS President Donald Trump signed a deal on rare earth minerals Monday with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and said Washington\u2019s key ally would get its coveted nuclear-powered attack submarines. The two leaders met at the White House to concentrate on a pair of areas \u2014 defense and critical minerals \u2014 in which Washington and Canberra are cooperating against what they view as an increasingly assertive China.
\nAlbanese said the rare earths deal would lead to $8.5 billion in critical minerals projects in Australia and take relations to the \u201cnext level.\u201d The Australian premier has touted his country\u2019s abundant critical minerals as a way to loosen China\u2019s grip over global supplies of rare earths, which are vital for tech products.
\nAustralia sits on deposits of lithium, cobalt and manganese as well as rare earth metals used in technologies from semiconductors to defense hardware, electric cars and wind turbines. The Australian government said it and the US government would each invest more than $1 billion over the next six months, while the White House put the figure at $3 billion between the two countries.
\nAlbanese had also been pushing for progress on the stalled 2021 AUKUS submarine deal between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Washington said earlier this year it was reviewing the deal for at least three Virginia-class nuclear attack subs signed under previous president Joe Biden, but Trump promised Australia would get them.
\n\u201cThe submarines that we\u2019re starting to build for Australia are really moving along,\u201d Trump told reporters as he sat alongside Albanese in the cabinet room of the White House. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked on this long and hard, and we\u2019re starting that process right now. And it\u2019s really moving along very rapidly, very well.\u201d\u2013\u2018I don\u2019t like you either\u2019 –
\nThe AUKUS deal could cost Canberra up to US$235 billion over the next 30 years. It also includes the technology to build its own vessels in the future. Australia also had a major bust-up with France after it canceled a multi-billion-dollar deal to buy a fleet of diesel-powered submarines from Paris and go with the AUKUS program instead.
\nThe nuclear-powered vessels lie at the heart of Australia\u2019s strategy of improving its long-range strike capabilities in the Pacific, particularly against China. But the Trump administration said in June it had put AUKUS under review to ensure it aligned with his \u201cAmerica First agenda,\u201d saying it needed to ensure the United States had enough of the subs. Albanese meanwhile managed to ride out an awkward confrontation between Trump and Australia\u2019s ambassador to Washington \u2014 former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
\nRudd deleted a series of critical social media posts about Trump following the Republican\u2019s election victory last year. \u201cI don\u2019t like you either. I don\u2019t. And I probably never will,\u201d Trump said to Rudd when a reporter pointed out that the ex-premier was in the room and asked the US president whether he minded the comments.
\nAustralians have a mostly unfavorable view of the Trump administration, polling shows, though the country relies on the United States to balance China\u2019s expanding military clout in the Pacific region. China loomed large over both of the key issues in the talks.Australia has touted itself as a key US ally against China\u2019s territorial assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific region, from Taiwan to the South China Sea.
\nOn China, Australia announced plans for a strategic reserve of critical minerals to provide to \u201ckey partners\u201d such as Washington to help relax Beijing\u2019s chokehold. Trump this month accused China of pressuring trade partners with new rare export curbs and threatened 100-percent tariffs in response. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON US President Donald Trump signed a deal on rare earth minerals Monday with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and said Washington\u2019s key ally would get its coveted nuclear-powered attack submarines. The two leaders met at the White House to concentrate on a pair of areas \u2014 defense and critical minerals \u2014 in which Washington […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-510058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n