AUKUS standoff: Australia, UK wait on Congress to approve pact
This is the first story of a three-part series. The second will be available Sept. 7, and the third on Sept. 8.
WASHINGTON ― A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers traveled to Britain this spring in an effort to get tough on China.
But House China committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and his delegation quickly found their British counterparts had another matter top of mind: AUKUS, the trilateral nuclear-powered submarine agreement with Britain and Australia.
Officials from those countries made clear to Gallagher and other U.S. lawmakers that Congress must take steps to ensure the deal is a success. Specifically, they want lawmakers to approve a blanket exemption for the U.K. and Australia within
Washington’s stringent export control regime.
That policy, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, sets rigorous restrictions on sensitive defense exports. Without ITAR exemptions, they worry the pact won’t succeed.
“The thing we heard most consistently from our allies in Britain is that ITAR is a roadblock for cooperation with them,” Gallagher told reporters. He said a “a free-world approach” to AUKUS is critical.
The AUKUS agreement is intended to draw the three countries’ defense industries closer together by
helping Australia develop its own nuclear-powered submarine fleetwhile sharing top secret technology among the allies. If it works, the program will develop cutting-edge capabilities that will influence the future of warfare.
While visiting Australia in August, Gallagher said “long-overdue ITAR reform” could lead to joint U.S.-Australian munitions production and hypersonic weapons development, “turbocharging AUKUS.”
Critics of existing U.S. export control laws, like Gallagher, argue reform is necessary to increase cooperation among the three countries’ defense-industrial bases, a goal the Biden administration is also eager to pursue. But the push to overhaul ITAR has faced resistance, with the State Department and Democrats arguing the export control policy is crucial to keeping defense industry secrets from falling into the hands of rivals such as China.
As the two-year anniversary of AUKUS approaches, the export control debate and a separate tussle over
the health of the submarine-industrial base have raised questions about how and when Congress will pass several authorizations needed to make the program into the transformational initiative leaders promised….. [more]