A group of US and Australian officials toured the public shipyard in Norfolk and Huntington Ingalls Industries in Newport News Friday, ahead of a landmark agreement.
Sen. Tim Kaine along with the Australian Ambassador Kevin Rudd toured the two local shipyards along with Navy and industry officials.The countries are working out the logistics of a new partnership to sell Virginia Class submarines to Australia.
“For us, this is a very large transformation. These are enormously capable vessels. The decision hasn't been taken lightly,” Rudd said.
Newport News is one of only two shipyards in the country which can produce the nuclear powered submarines. One problem is the Navy has been behind in both building and maintaining the Virginia class of subs. Navy Under Secretary Erik Ravens vowed to get a handle on it starting with a request in the upcoming defense bill.
“$1.7 billion over the next several years to get at some of these maintenance delays that we're seeing,” he said. “We're also partnering with private shipyards to make sure that all this load on maintenance is not only at our public shipyards.”
Part of a strategy to respond to the rise of China, the AUKUS agreement is named after the three countries participating - the US, the United Kingdom and Australia. It was negotiated by the Biden administration in 2021, but the details are still working through Congress, including Kaine’s committee.
“And so we'll work on training, we'll work on supply chain, we'll work on technology standards,” Kaine said.
Beginning sometime in the 2030s, the US will sell submarines to Australia, with the idea that eventually the Austrailians would begin building their own version of the sub sometime in the 20240s. Recently, the first Australian officers graduated from US nuclear school in South Carolina and will deploy on US subs.
