Australia is sending billions to the Trump administration – and wants to keep it secret

The Albanese government is wiring public money to the US military while refusing to release payment details or guarantees.

Australian defence minister Richard Marles

The Albanese government is refusing to disclose details of the billions in payments it is sending to the Trump administration to help the US boost its own naval shipyards.

The agency in charge of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program has blocked the public release of the payment schedule, insisting that Australia would harm its international reputation and lose “financial leverage” if it took a transparent approach.

But former Labor senator Doug Cameron told Deepcut the government must “stop throwing good money after bad and cease all AUKUS payments to the Trump administration”.

Under the AUKUS pact, Australia is expected to provide a total of $4.6bn (US$3bn) to the US expressly for the purpose of easing America’s own submarine maintenance and production delays.

The official explanation is that these payments are to smooth the way for the US to be in a better position to sell Australia at least three of its Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s, but critics say there is no guarantee the US will make good on its end of the deal.

The Greens’ spokesperson on defence and foreign affairs, David Shoebridge, said: “I am sure it is embarrassing for Labor that it is sending so much public money to the US to build nuclear submarines we will never get, but that embarrassment is the very worst reason to refuse access to the payment schedules.”

The funding to the US is a subset of the overall submarine project expected to cost Australia between $268bn and $368bn by the mid-2050s. Australia and the United Kingdom are designing a new model of nuclear-powered submarine, which Australia will build in Adelaide and hopes to start using from the 2040s.

‘The cheque did clear’

The Trump administration is conducting its own review of AUKUS and has sent signals it wants Australia to dramatically ramp up its military spending and explicitly pre-commit to backing the US in the event of war with China.

So far, details of the first two payments to the US have been released in an ad-hoc way, starting when the defence minister, Richard Marles, travelled to Washington in February to announce the first US$500m transfer during talks with Donald Trump’s Pentagon chief, former Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth.

“The cheque did clear,” Hegseth said at a joint press event, prompting Marles to respond: “It did clear, good, I wanted to know that. But we're really pleased to make it in the first week of your tenure as the secretary of defense.”

In June, US Navy Secretary John C. Phelan disclosed during testimony to the US House Armed Services Committee that Australia was expected to deposit another US$500m this month” and an additional US$1bn by the end of 2025.

In July, the Nine newspapers reported the second payment had since been made, but said the government had refused to confirm the date.

Deepcut applied to the Australian Submarine Agency, a statutory agency that reports to Marles, for access to the schedule of Australia’s payments to the US, including dates and amounts.

The Freedom of Information application further sought any advice about any mechanism for Australia to get a refund if the US changed its mind.

For our eyes only

The ASA identified one document covering “the financial aspects of an international arrangement between Australia and the United States” including “details of payments and related information that formed part of confidential intergovernmental negotiations”.

But the FOI decision maker at the ASA argued disclosure “could harm Australia’s international standing and reputation” because it “contains information communicated to Australia by foreign governments and their officials under the expectation that it would not be disclosed”.

The decision letter, dated 14 July, also warned release of “payment schedules, funding arrangements and negotiated terms” could “disadvantage the Commonwealth in future procurement negotiations”.

Cameron, now the national patron of the grassroots group Labor Against War, said his party must “practise what it preached when in opposition and ensure government transparency and accountability”.

He said Marles must “cease hiding behind the outrageous claim that the need to ‘protect negotiating leverage’ with the USA requires the Australian public to be left in the dark about AUKUS payments that are subsidising the US military industrial complex”.

Andrew Fowler, author of the 2024 book ‘Nuked: The Submarine Fiasco that Sank Australia’s Sovereignty’, said Australia’s reputation was “shredded” and all leverage “was lost when the Morrison government told the US it was dumping the French and going nuclear with the US”.

“There has always been opposition by some of the Labor branches to AUKUS, but the calls for AUKUS to be investigated or dropped are growing louder,” Fowler told Deepcut.

Earlier this month, the Victorian Labor party state conference urged the federal government to launch an independent parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS and to suspend payments pending the results.

‘Making Australia a base for US militarism’

Supporters and critics agree the significance of AUKUS extends well beyond the submarines themselves. A senior Biden administration official said the agreement “binds decisively Australia to the United States and Great Britain for generations”.

The Albanese government argues AUKUS is motivated by a desire to deter conflict and promote regional “stability”, citing concerns over the pace of China’s own military buildup.

The government insists Australia will have sovereign control of the submarines, even though senior Biden administration official Kurt Campbell said in 2022: “When submarines are provided from the United States to Australia, it’s not like they’re lost – they will just be deployed by the closest possible allied force.”

The director of the Australia Institute’s international and security affairs program, Emma Shortis, said the dangers of AUKUS “were baked in from the start” but Trump “just makes them more obvious and as usual will say the quiet part out loud”.

“The ‘pre-commitment’ to joining conflict is built in, it’s just that the Trump administration might make it explicit,” she said.

Cameron said AUKUS, combined with allowing more US forces in Australia, was “about making Australia a base for US militarism and hegemony in Asia”, increasing the likelihood of “conflict with Australia’s most important trading partner, China”.

Marles said on 30 May that Australia and the US shared the values of “democracy and the rule of law”, but Cameron countered: “The Trump administration’s authoritarianism and disregard for the rule of law means Australians cannot trust the USA as a defence partner.”

Deepcut sent detailed questions to both Marles and the ASA more than a week ago, but they chose not to comment.