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 an earlier question by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
“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 Kingdom 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.
