Biden-Harris Undercut Aukus, Their One Foreign-Policy Success

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President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and then British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Australia, March 13, 2023. Photo: Reuters

Joe Biden’s most significant foreign-policy accomplishment is Aukus, the September 2021 deal between the U.S., U.K. and Australia. But the Biden-Harris administration is putting it in jeopardy.

Along with allowing the U.S. to sell conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, Aukus includes an agreement to increase cooperation on research and development in advanced technologies with military applications. Known as Pillar II, this provision provides a generational opportunity to ensure a more secure Indo-Pacific through cooperation on artificial intelligence, quantum computing and hypersonic capabilities and other innovations.

To clear the way for this critical new security deal, I ensured the inclusion of bipartisan language in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act providing that “exports and transfers of . . . defense articles and services” between Aukus partners are to be exempt from “licensing or other approval requirements,” with limited exceptions.

After four months of delays, the Biden-Harris administration has finally issued these congressionally mandated exemptions for Australia and the U.K. Disappointingly, it also included a lengthy Excluded Technologies List, effectively creating a new, burdensome regulatory framework for approving defense transfers to Aukus partners. Congress envisioned streamlining technological collaboration. Instead, the White House is maintaining far too many of the barriers that were in place before Aukus.

The Biden-Harris administration is restricting Pillar II’s collective cooperation on such key technologies as advanced weapons and unmanned underwater vehicles. One key requirement for Pillar II innovation is sharing manufacturing know-how. But the Excluded Technologies List prevents information sharing between foreign companies that is vital for research and development. The administration seems content in its heavy-handedness—the newly released Excluded Technologies List is longer than the one the administration initially proposed in May, which itself was widely critiqued by the defense industry as overly burdensome.

If the administration insists on defying Congress and maintaining a lengthy Excluded Technologies List for Aukus, it risks handing a victory to communist China. Both the U.K. and Australia have taken significant steps to enable the Aukus partnership, including changes to defense export regulations. And Australia has committed to a direct investment of more $3 billion in the U.S. submarine industrial base.

It is up to the Biden-Harris administration to meet our partners’ commitment and comply with Congress’s clear intent by shortening the Excluded Technologies List to only those required by statute or treaty. The administration can’t demand industry take greater risks to advance critical technology while hindering it with new regulations.

This administration’s foreign policy has so far been defined by the chaotic and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan and the wars in Europe and the Middle East that followed. By unleashing Aukus’s full potential, the administration can mitigate some of the damage caused by its past failures and enable America and its allies to cement true deterrence.

Mr. McCaul, a Texas Republican, is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

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To China's frustration, the Aukus partnership between the U.S., U.K. and Australia to deliver Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines is gaining ground, despite funding challenges to the U.S. submarine industrial base. Images: U.S. Navy/Zuma Press/AP Composite: Mark Kelly

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Appeared in the August 31, 2024, print edition as 'Biden-Harris Undercut Their One Foreign-Policy Success'. 

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