‘DELUSIONAL AND DANGEROUS’: Australia’s Nightmare Scenario Unfolds as Trump Puts $368BN AUKUS Submarine Deal on Trial, Sparking Panic Down Under

CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA – A political earthquake has rocked Canberra as the White House officially puts the colossal $368 billion AUKUS submarine pact under a microscope, triggering a firestorm of panic and recrimination Down Under. The landmark deal, once hailed as the cornerstone of Australia's future security, now hangs by a thread, threatened by President Donald Trump's iron-fisted "America First" agenda, leaving a key U.S. ally facing the terrifying prospect of being left defenseless in an increasingly hostile world.

The bombshell announcement confirmed Australia's worst fears. The White House has tasked Elbridge Colby, a notorious AUKUS skeptic and key defense official, to lead a "common sense, America First" review of the pact. The criteria are brutal and direct: Washington is questioning why it should share the "crown jewels" of its nuclear submarine technology when its own navy is struggling to meet production targets, and demanding to know if allies like Australia are "stepping up fully" and pulling their financial weight.

The move has sent a chill through the Australian government and ignited a fierce debate, exposing deep-seated anxieties about the nation's reliance on an increasingly unpredictable America. "I don't think any Australian should feel that our ally is fully committed to our security at this moment," warned Sam Roggeveen, a leading security analyst at Australia's prestigious Lowy Institute.

The Deal of the Century on the Chopping Block

On paper, AUKUS was Australia's golden ticket. The pact, signed in 2021 by a different trio of world leaders—Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, and Scott Morrison—promised to deliver a fleet of cutting-edge, nuclear-powered submarines. These boats would allow Australia, for the first time, to project power deep into the Pacific, operate faster and farther than its aging diesel fleet, and serve as a critical deterrent to an expansionist China.

For the US and UK, it was a strategic masterstroke, placing their most advanced military hardware in a vital geopolitical hotspot to police Beijing. But through the isolationist lens of the Trump administration, the deal now looks like a costly giveaway at a time when America itself feels vulnerable.

"Why are we giving away this crown jewel asset when we most need it?" Colby himself asked pointedly last year, a sentiment that is now official White House policy.

Calm Facade, Internal Panic

Publicly, the Australian government is scrambling to present a calm front. Defence Minister Richard Marles insisted he was "very confident" the deal would survive. "It's only natural for a new administration to reassess the decisions of its predecessor," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

But behind the scenes, sources in Canberra describe a mood of frantic concern. "I think angst has been inseparable from AUKUS since its beginning," Euan Graham, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told the BBC. "The review itself is not alarming. It's just everything else."

That "everything else" includes Trump's increasingly transactional view of alliances. "Trump has said... that Ukraine is mainly Europe's problem because they are separated by a big, beautiful ocean," Roggeveen noted. "Well of course, there's a big, beautiful ocean separating America from Asia too."

A Chorus of "I Told You So"

The crisis has brought Australia's former leaders out in force, each with a different, damning verdict.

Scott Morrison, the conservative prime minister who brokered the deal, urged calm, dismissing concerns that Australia could find security elsewhere as "honestly delusional."

But Malcolm Turnbull, the man whose French submarine contract Morrison spectacularly tore up to make way for AUKUS, issued a stark warning. He declared that Australia needs to "wake up," realize it's a "bad deal" the US could abandon at any moment, and find a Plan B before it's too late. The French, still smarting from the "stab in the back," feel grimly vindicated.

Most scathing of all was former Prime Minister Paul Keating, a long-time advocate for closer ties with China. He savaged the pact, hoping this review "might very well be the moment Washington saves Australia from itself." He branded AUKUS a "deal hurriedly scribbled on the back of an envelope by Scott Morrison, along with the vacuous British blowhard Boris Johnson and the confused President Joe Biden."

What Happens Next? An Ally Adrift

The best-case scenario for Australia is that the review concludes the deal's benefits—billions in revenue for the US defense industry and a powerful proxy in the Pacific—outweigh the costs. The US has nearly a decade to sort out its own submarine production issues before the first Australian boat is due.

But the real possibility remains that Trump will demand to rewrite the terms, or worse, cancel the transfer of the initial Virginia-class submarines. This would leave Australia with its increasingly obsolete Collins-class fleet for another two decades, a sitting duck in a region bristling with tension.

If the US exits the alliance entirely, AUKUS becomes an awkward "AUK." Could the UK alone provide the technology and support needed to sustain the agreement? It seems highly unlikely.

The crisis has exposed Australia's deepest fear: abandonment. "There is this mental block in Australia and also this emotional block... this idea that we can't defend ourselves alone," says Roggeveen.

Now, as its greatest ally reconsiders the partnership that defines its defense strategy, Australia is being forced to confront that very possibility. And as the world watches, the question hangs heavy in the air: can Australia defend itself alone? It may soon have no choice but to find out.
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