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Australia’s new ambassador to the United States, Greg Moriarty, says every American official he has spoken with about AUKUS has assured him of their strong support for the deal, rejecting claims that US commitment to the pact was shaky or that Australia needed a back-up plan.
The Albanese government is also enlisting corporate Australia to help prove the country’s bona fides against forced labour, after the Trump administration threatened to increase tariffs on Australia for allegedly failing to prevent imports of goods made under slave conditions overseas.
Moriarty told this masthead he had raised the issue in all of his introductory calls with US officials and vowed Australia would “robustly but respectfully” push back against the proposed new tariffs, which were unjustified and inconsistent with the long-standing US-Australia free trade agreement.
Moriarty took over from former prime minister Kevin Rudd as ambassador in April and formally presented his credentials to US President Donald Trump at the White House late last month.
Moriarty said he was struck by the warmth of the greeting from Trump, who told him Australia was one of his “favourite countries”, and described Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as his “good friend”.
Trump did not raise the issue of Australia’s participation in the war in Iran or the Strait of Hormuz - something he has repeatedly complained about to journalists. “He said Australia has been a very good partner,” Moriarty said.
Rudd, in a recent exit interview with this masthead, said AUKUS – under which Australia is due to buy at least three nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarines from the US – had “zero possibility” of coming unstuck, despite ongoing doubts about the production capacity of American naval shipyards.
The US has now confirmed that all three boats will be in-service (or second-hand), closing the possibility that one vessel would be brand new.
Former ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, now a Washington-based lobbyist with widespread connections in the Trump administration, recently told the National Press Club he was “a little nervous” about the Virginias for the first time after speaking with people on Capitol Hill.
Asked who was correct between Rudd and Hockey, Moriarty – who was previously head of the Defence Department – said he did not think it was a binary, and noted AUKUS was “an enormously challenging endeavour”.
“One of the things I’ve been struck by since I’ve been here is just how strong the US commitment to AUKUS is,” he said. “I’ve met a number of figures in the administration ... all of the people that I’ve spoken to have been uniformly strong in their support.”
Many of those people had referred to Trump’s declaration last October that AUKUS was “full steam ahead” under his leadership, he added.
The most pressing issue facing Moriarty in his new job is arguably the Trump administration’s plan to impose a 12.5 per cent tariff on goods from Australia – up from 10 per cent – because Canberra had allegedly “failed to impose and effectively enforce a forced labour import prohibition”.
The proposal was made after the US Supreme Court ruled Trump’s sweeping “reciprocal tariffs”, including those on Australia, were illegal, and the administration said it would find other ways to impose the levies.
Asked whether the government considered the new tariff to be genuine, Moriarty said: “We’re dealing with it at face value.”
The government was working on a submission to the US trade office that would make a strong case against the tariff, he said. It was enlisting Australian businesses to provide more data on how industry dealt with products sourced from overseas labour.
“Our regime to counter modern slavery and forced labour is one of the strongest in the world … There is no basis for the proposed action.”
Australia is not seeking to horse trade with the US administration on the proposed tariffs.
“We are engaging on the basis that we would like adherence to the terms of the [existing] free trade agreement,” Moriarty said.
A former Australian ambassador to Iran, Moriarty briefed then-US president George W. Bush on Iranian politics in the mid-2000s.
As news broke that Trump was planning further strikes against Iran – which were later “cancelled” – Moriarty reiterated Australia’s position that the war should be settled diplomatically as quickly as possible.
He said he was talking to members of the Trump administration about Australia’s contributions - primarily an E-7 surveillance aircraft for the United Arab Emirates - as well as “our willingness to engage in discussions about future maritime security mechanisms”.
Iran was a malign actor and it would be incredibly destabilising to the world to allow the regime to develop a nuclear weapon, Moriarty added.
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