Pentagon wants to make Aukus work but some stakeholders have ‘serious concerns’, senior US defence official says

Some US military stakeholders have “very serious concerns” about the Aukus arrangement but the Pentagon wants “to make this thing work”, a senior American defence official says. While they say a review of the nuclear submarine pact is being undertaken in good faith, it will not be completed within 30 days, as initially anticipated.

Still, Washington is sticking to its request for Australia to give “a clear sense” of how it would respond militarily, including with the Aukus submarines, to future conflicts. While Anthony Albanese declares the Australian government wants to see “peace in and security in our region”, the senior official says the US wants Australia to step up more.

“Substantial increases in Australian defense spending I think are quite warranted,” they told Guardian Australia.

The Aukus pact, under which America would share nuclear-powered submarines and sell several secondhand models to Australia, is under review from the Trump administration. The appraisal was initially reported as running for 30 days, but Labor sources said last week that it was not likely to be completed for months, while a Pentagon spokesperson said there was no public timeline for the work.

The senior US defence official told Guardian Australia of the review: “thirty days was never accurate.” They said it was continuing, but conceded diverse opinions inside the American military establishment on the Australia-US-UK pact.

“We’d like to make this thing work as best as we can, consistent with President Trump’s agenda,” they said.

“We are doing this in good faith. Elbridge Colby is in many ways a moderate on AUKUS. There are folks that are very powerful and very important stakeholders who have very serious concerns privately. [Colby] in many ways is a moderate trying to do this thing in a prudential manner.”

Albanese, currently in China on a six-day trip with a delegation of business leaders, has downplayed US demands for Australia to spend more on defence, noting Australia has already boosted its military commitments.

Over the weekend, he pushed back on requests from the US about future conflicts, alluding to America’s own position of so-called “strategic ambiguity” on whether the US would militarily respond in a conflict over Taiwan.

On Monday, asked in China if he was concerned about American responses to Aukus reported in recent days, Albanese responded: “I’m very focused on my purpose of being here.”

Asked whether his China trip – and its focus on business and economic ties with Australia – was partly about helping smooth Beijing’s Aukus concerns, the prime minister responded that the two countries were important partners.

“One of the things that’s important to recognise is that the economic relationship is obviously based upon a stable and secure region. We’ve seen the disruption that occurs when there is conflict in the world. That’s why we need to make sure that we do everything we can to promote peace and security in the region.”

Pushed on when he planned to meet with Donald Trump, Albanese called for “a bit of perspective” and said he looked forward to “constructive engagement” with the US president in due course.

But speaking later, the shadow home affairs minister, Andrew Hastie, said the Aukus issue “needs the prime minister’s attention”.

“It is important if a conflict arises we have an understanding with the US on our role and what that means for our sovereignty and national interest,” Hastie told the ABC.

Asked about reports in multiple media outlets that the Pentagon was seeking guarantees of support from Australia in future conflicts, the official confirmed the US was asking questions.

“There’s a conversation about command structure, about alignment of assets. We would want, in any scenario, a clear sense of what we can expect from Australia,” they said.

“There seems to be a hyper emphasis on Taiwan in public reporting. But this is broader than any one particular contingency. It is about how we can reasonably expect these kinds of critical assets to be allocated across different scenarios.”

On Monday afternoon, environment minister Murray Watt said when Albanese met with President Xi Jinping tomorrow, he would raise security matters, trade matters and human rights matters.

“It is a fact that there are security tensions with China,” Watt said.