Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth are meeting their Australian counterparts Monday in Washington for annual talks expected to focus on Indo-Pacific security and countering China’s increasing assertiveness in the region, including in the South China Sea and directed at Taiwan.
Rubio, Hegseth, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles gathered at the State Department, with many eyes also on the Russia-Ukraine war, fragile ceasefire in Gaza and US military strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere that have raised questions about the use of force there.
“This is a very strong partnership, it’s a strong alliance, and what we want to do is continue to build on it. We think we have a lot of momentum behind this alliance,” Rubio said, hailing cooperation between Washington and Canberra on critical minerals, defense production and troop deployments.
None of the four mentioned China by name in their brief comments to reporters before the formal meeting began, but the challenges posed by Beijing throughout the Pacific and elsewhere for years have been a central theme of the US-Australia relationship.
President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a critical minerals deal at the White House in October after China imposed tougher rules on exporting its own critical minerals, used in technology from cellphones to fighter jets and of which Beijing is the top producer and processor.
After Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met later that month, Beijing said it would pause those rules for a year. “We have to have critical mineral supplies and supply chains that are reliable, and that are diverse, and not overly invested in one place where they can be used as leverage against us or our partners of the world,” Rubio said Monday.
One element of that is the AUKUS pact, a Biden administration-era agreement under which the US, Britain and Australia committed to building an Australian fleet of submarines powered by US nuclear technology.
Rubio is to meet later Monday with British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. “The alliance has always been to ensure it delivers concrete benefits for our security and prosperity and for that of the US. And AUKUS is central to that: a win for Australia, a win for the US and a win for the United Kingdom,” Wong said.
