A senior State Department official told lawmakers the AUKUS security partnership is being hindered by a complex web of regulatory barriers, describing the challenge as a “fishing knot” that requires both regulatory and legislative fixes.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, Thomas Dinanno, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said the administration views AUKUS – the trilateral framework between the U.S., Australia and the U.K. to supply nuclear-powered submarines and other nuclear information and technologies to Australia – as a test case for broader defense trade reform.
“We’re sort of looking at AUKUS as a bit of the canary in the coal mine on this regulatory reform,” Dinanno said, noting that the deeper officials dig into the framework, “the more problems there are.”
The comments came in response to questioning from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who highlighted congressional support for the initiative, including the creation of the Office of AUKUS Senior Advisor in the State Department to coordinate AUKUS implementation in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.
Dinanno said that the office reports directly to him and is working closely with counterparts in Australia and the United Kingdom. Recent engagements, he said, have helped clarify differences in regional focus and operational priorities among the partners.
Still, major structural hurdles remain—particularly export controls and technology-sharing restrictions. Dinanno pointed to ongoing review of the Missile Technology Control Regime, including changes to how certain unmanned systems are classified, as one area of progress.
But Dinanno emphasized that broader changes will likely be needed. “The excluded technology list … is the other sort of 800-pound gorilla here,” he said, adding that the list must be reduced to enable more effective collaboration.
The “excluded technologies list” refers to categories of sensitive defense and dual-use technologies the U.S. is not allowed to share with even close allies, including the United Kingdom and Australia. These technologies include ones that are nuclear-propulsion related and artificial intelligence capabilities, so critics like Dinanno imply it could create bureaucratic regulatory friction and undercut the purpose of AUKUS.
Dinanno indicated the administration may seek legislative relief from Congress once its review is complete and said he intends to work with lawmakers on potential fixes. While he cited “positive steps forward,” he made clear that AUKUS’s success will depend on how quickly the United States can untangle its regulatory framework to support deeper defense integration with allies.
In the halls of the Capitol, Kaine told the Exchange Monitor he found Dinanno’s answer “positive,” and says from what he can tell from his answer and his visits to Australia, “they’re taking it [AUKUS] seriously.”
“I wanted to make sure that, you know, there was some equivocation about AUKUS in the first months of the [Donald] Trump administration, and that was not unexpected,” Kaine continued. “The administration’s going to kick the tires and make sure that they feel like the proposal is sound.”
Kaine said the review of AUKUS at the end of calendar 2025, which ended in a declaration for AUKUS to move “full steam ahead,” positions the U.S. to be “not in a weather mode,” but in a “‘how and how to implement’ mode.”
“A lot is going well, but there are some, you know, just additional issues we have to tackle,” Kaine concluded.