Aukus should expand to other shipbuilding nations, US congressman suggests, as Albanese returns to Australia

A leading US congressman admits America must substantially boost its defence manufacturing capacity in order to sell Australia nuclear submarines under Aukus, floating the idea of adding Japan, South Korea or Norway to the pact to help build more ships.

Anthony Albanese has returned from Washington DC with Donald Trump’s endorsement of Aukus and a fresh show of support from long-time backers of the military pact in the US congress. Both Republican and Democratic politicians reaffirmed their support to help Australia buy second-hand American submarines, even as concerns still remain about whether US shipyards – currently not working fast enough to meet America’s own requirements – can produce enough boats to sell any extras.

Congressman Adam Smith, Democratic leader of the House armed services committee, said Aukus was important to help America meet its “massive needs” in national security, but that the US needed to build more submarines.

“I think we’ve got some work to do. I’m confident we can get there, but that’s why the partnership is so important. We have to improve our defence industrial base, we can’t do that on our own,” he told Guardian Australia.

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“I hope we can explore partnerships with other nations as well; South Korea, Japan, Norway. They’re all capable shipbuilders. I hope we can grow the Aukus partnership on those goals.”

Under the Aukus agreement, Australia will contribute billions to increase America’s defence industry capacity. Albanese told a breakfast meeting of US congressional leaders that Australia already sent US$1bn (A$1.6b), with more to come.

“There’ll be $1bn on its way before Christmas,” the prime minister said.

“And then a further $1bn next year because we understand that we want to uplift your industrial capacity so that we make a contribution for when we purchase your Virginia-class submarines.”

Albanese has indicated the United States could seek minor updates to the Aukus agreement, following Trump’s naval secretary raising plans to “clarify some of the ambiguity” in the deal.

Smith welcomed Trump’s endorsement of Aukus, revealing he and others “were worried some people at the Department of Defense had some reservations”.

Congressman Adam Smith said Aukus was important to help America meet its ‘massive needs’ in national security, but that the US needed to build more submarines. Photograph: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“This is a huge positive, I hope this [Trump] administration will see it through,” he said.

“Many of us who have been strong advocates for Aukus has been apprehensive about where the Trump administration would end up. Seeing where they ended up, Albanese seems to have done a very effective job. I’m glad the meeting went well.”

Australia, the United Kingdom and United States have discussed, formally and informally, cooperation with other nations under the Aukus framework. Japan has been continually nominated as a potential partner under pillar II of the pact, which goes to advanced technological capabilities, while South Korea has also been discussed in that stream.

But Smith suggested a potentially wider sense of cooperation with nations outside the Aukus partners.

“The discussion is very nascent, it’s just getting started. I’d see it more on shipbuilding and repair than submarines specifically, but those nations are allies of ours,” he said.

“Japan was the first that we thought of, but I want personally to be as ambitious as possible in this project and look for partners and allies across the world to help us meet our defence needs.”

The Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, was contacted for comment. He said last month during a visit to Japan “we continue to look to areas where we can cooperate with Japan under the banner of Aukus, or more generally, in terms of industrial collaboration, but also innovation.”

Concerns over the pace and efficiency of current US shipbuilding have raised worries over whether Australia will be able to purchase the Virginia-class submarines as scheduled. The US navy estimates it needs to be building Virginia-class submarines at a rate of about 2.33 a year to have enough boats to sell any to Australia, but as of July was building around 1.13 a year.

The US navy estimates it needs to be building Virginia-class submarines at a rate of 2.00 a year just to meet its own defence requirements.

At the end of his trip, Albanese said he was pleased by the American support for Aukus.

“Ambassador [Kevin] Rudd has done a great job of building support across members of Congress for the Aukus arrangements,” he said.

Albanese met members of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee during his trip. Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Jim Risch, the Democratic and Republican ranking members respectively, said they hoped “our relationship only continues to grow, most notably with the continuation of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) agreement”.

“Together, we will push back against adversaries like China that threaten us and our allies in the Indo-Pacific,” they said.

Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas who until recently chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Guardian Australia that Aukus “keeps Chairman Xi [Jinping] up at night.” He met Albanese during his visit, calling for the Pillar II arrangement to be expanded to explore cooperation on more technology.