Key Trump adviser confident Australia would join US ‘in a good fight’

Washington DC: A few months ago in Honolulu, the Trump administration’s point man for AUKUS – who rarely speaks publicly – gave a broad-brush appraisal of why Donald Trump strongly supports the agreement.

AUKUS, which marks its five-year anniversary this week, was more than a one-off deal, Adam Korzeniewski told the audience. It was “a mentality”, a way of thinking that could be applied with other partners.

“AUKUS is the spearhead, it’s the canary in the coalmine, it’s the future model of interoperability between different allies,” he said. “If we can’t figure this out with Australia and the UK, then what are we doing?”

Trump believed AUKUS was “completely in line with his national security strategy”, Korzeniewski said. That document , rewritten in November 2025, stipulates the US will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain around China.

But it won’t do this alone. The strategy says America’s allies must step up: spend “much more” on collective defence, allow the US greater military access to their ports and other facilities, and invest in capabilities that deter aggression. AUKUS ticks all of those boxes.

As for the question of what the US would expect of Australia in the event of a conflict with China, Korzeniewski had little doubt that Canberra would play its part. “Australia joined us in the Vietnam War,” he said. “I’m not really that concerned about Australia’s willingness to join in a good fight if one comes up.”

Korzeniewski is an AUKUS liaison officer in the State Department, who moved to the role in February. A political appointee of the Trump administration, he is a bridge between the bureaucracy and the politicians. His previous job was White House liaison during the dismantling of USAID.

His remarks to the Security and Defence Plus forum in Honolulu, which have not been previously reported, add context to Trump’s oft-cited declaration that AUKUS is “full steam ahead”.

Those three words, uttered by the US president when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited last year, have become gospel for both US and Australian officials. The phrase is repeated so often that it tends to invoke eye-rolls among Australian correspondents in Washington. But Trump has said little publicly about why he values AUKUS so highly.

For opponents of the agreement in Australia, Korzeniewski’s remarks will bolster perceptions that the US is using AUKUS to establish a strategic foothold here. This was reinforced by the Pentagon baulking at recent suggestions that the presence of US submarines at HMAS Stirling near Perth might be limited to five years. In the view of AUKUS opponents, this is not in Australia’s interests.

But all three AUKUS governments – in Canberra, Washington and London – believe their interests are aligned. And in the five years since it was announced at a virtual press conference (during which Joe Biden memorably referred to Scott Morrison as “that fellow down under”), AUKUS has survived a change of government in each country.

The political consensus could not be clearer, even if there is lingering uncertainty among voters.