Washington: Above anything else, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will want to use his White House visit to extract a commitment from US President Donald Trump to honour the AUKUS defence pact and the plan for Australia to buy at least three nuclear-powered submarines from the US before making our own.

It seems that’s where things are heading. Despite the Pentagon undertaking a thorough review of the deal, all the messaging suggests the US will broadly stick with it, perhaps with some alterations to put an “America First” stamp on a policy inked under former US president Joe Biden.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese leaves for Washington to meet with Donald Trump.Credit: AAP

And why wouldn’t they? AUKUS is a great deal for the US and its lagging submarine industrial base, which is producing far fewer boats than required. To that end, Australia has so far handed over two cheques, each for about $800 million, to support American shipbuilding. It will “shortly” produce the next scheduled payment of $US1 billion ($1.54 billion), and is due to pay a further $US1 billion at a later date.

At the end of the day, the agreement does not bind the US to give Australia the submarines it helped build. In........

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