Trump military chief ‘p***ing everyone off’ as UK submarine deal on knife edge | World | News
Donald Trump’s top military strategist is “p***ing everyone off” in Washington as tensions mount over the future of the landmark AUKUS submarine pact with the UK and Australia. Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s Deputy Under Secretary of Defence for Policy, has emerged as a central figure in a growing internal row after unilaterally launching a review of the nuclear-powered submarine deal brokered under President Joe Biden.
The agreement, worth an estimated $368 billion, is designed to deliver a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia with support from the UK and US, and is widely viewed as a key element of Western efforts to counter Chinese military ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. But Me Colby, an outspoken proponent of Mr Trump’s “America First” foreign policy and a long-time AUKUS sceptic, has pushed for significant changes—sparking uproar among senior officials across the White House, State Department and National Security Council.
One insider told Politico: “He is p***ing off just about everyone I know inside the administration. They all view him as the guy who’s going to make the US do less in the world in general.
“He has basically decided that he’s going to be the intellectual driving force behind a kind of neo-isolationism that believes the United States should act more alone, that allies and friends are kind of encumbering.”
As the review gathers pace, there are mounting fears in both London and Canberra that the Trump administration will demand far tougher terms—including more money from Australia and possibly even formal guarantees that any future submarines be deployed alongside the US in a potential conflict with China, particularly over Taiwan.
The shake-up comes just days before Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is due to travel to China, and amid warnings from the Opposition that his government is not doing enough to defend the integrity of the AUKUS deal.
Senator James Paterson, the Coalition’s finance spokesman, accused Mr Albanese of failing to engage directly with Mr Trump since his return to the White House in January, despite repeated signals from Washington that the agreement could be in jeopardy.
He told Sky News: “It is now 247 days since President Trump was elected and Prime Minister Albanese is one of the only world leaders not to have a face-to-face meeting with him.
“Now we’ve also got a problem where there are credible media reports that our US Ambassador Kevin Rudd is not able to get a meeting in the White House.”
“If that is true, then that is making this an even harder task for us.”
AUKUS was first announced in 2021 as a trilateral security partnership between the US, UK and Australia. Under the deal, Australia will initially acquire three Virginia-class submarines from the US, with an option for two more. It will then build a new class of submarines—dubbed SSN-AUKUS—in collaboration with Britain.
The pact was originally sold as a long-term investment in regional security and a counterweight to growing Chinese assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. But it has faced criticism in all three countries over costs, timelines and transparency.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, a long-standing opponent of the agreement, said reports of US demands for more money showed the deal was unravelling.
She said: “The US is already starting to put up the flagpole that Australians, Australian taxpayers, are going to have to pay more for it. We’ve already coughed up the money. We’re the ones putting the money on the table.”
Further alarm was sparked after British defence officials were reportedly blindsided during a June meeting at the Pentagon when Mr Colby questioned why the UK had sent an aircraft carrier to the region.
Another source said: “He basically asked them, ‘Is it too late to call it back?
“‘You have no business being in the Indo-Pacific,’ he was basically saying.”
The Trump administration has not formally commented on the future of AUKUS, but insiders warn the deal is now “on a knife edge”.
