WASHINGTON — Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower, told Naval witnesses at a hearing Tuesday that the U.S. needs to “reciprocate” the commitment Australia made to the shipbuilding workforce.
“I’m very pro-AUKUS,” Kaine said at the hearing on the state of conventional surface shipbuilding at the Capitol, adding that he thinks the United States needs “more alliances in the Indo-Pacific” and “we need to deal with the China threat.”
“But I am worried about this reality-to-budget,” Kaine said, stressing that Australia committed to giving the U.S. a $3 billion investment toward its shipbuilding workforce to help build nuclear-armed submarines for Australia.
“They [Australia] did it, and they made the commitment, and it demonstrates the concern they have about China, obviously,” Kaine said. “We have a lot at stake in trying to make sure we can meet the commitment. We need to meet our own needs for sure, but that’s a huge commitment that they’ve made to us that we need to reciprocate.”
Kaine also told the Exchange Monitor in January AUKUS would probably be in a “good position” under President Donald Trump.
While the witnesses did not have a chance to respond, Brett Seidle, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, stressed the importance of submarines in answering a question by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) earlier in the hearing.
“It would be a significant mistake [to eliminate the Columbia-class],” Seidle said. “We have maritime dominance in that submarine arena, and the Columbia-class is the most important leg of our nuclear triad.”
Leidle also agreed with Blumenthal that the U.S. also needed to continue building the Virginia-class subs.
AUKUS is a trilateral agreement among Australia, the United Kindom. and the United States. In the 2030s the U.S. plans to sell Australia three to five used and new Virginia-class submarines. Australia plans to build its own SSN-AUKUS boats the following decade.
A few weeks ago in a joint address to Congress, Trump said he plans to set up an Office of Shipbuilding to “resurrect” domestic shipbuilding. It is unclear how the U.S. shipbuilding base will affect AUKUS.
