AUKUS Review, Critical Minerals to Dominate

Welcome back to Foreign policySituation Report for, in which one of the co-authors manages to secure tickets for next year’s FIFA World Cup but refuses to take the other along.

Well, here’s what’s on offer for today: AustraliaThe country’s leader is preparing to meet US President Donald Trump in… Okos ReviewTrump resumes his balancing act on… War in Ukraineand key US government advisor He is Arrested.

The third time is the charm for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who will finally hold a bilateral meeting with Trump at the White House on Monday, after two missed opportunities that were widely seen as snubs from Trump back home. The two leaders were scheduled to meet at the G7 summit in Canada in June, but Trump left the gathering early to deal with the escalating security situation in the Middle East. Trump also left Albanese off the schedule for his bilateral meetings at the UN General Assembly last month, though the pair met at a larger reception hosted by Trump on the sidelines and took a selfie together before scheduling a meeting Monday at the White House.

The delay in securing a meeting with Trump, although an endless topic of headlines, may not necessarily hurt Albanians domestically. Trump remains deeply unpopular among the Australian public, with a new poll this week by the Center for US Studies at the University of Sydney indicating that only 16% of Australians feel the second Trump administration has been good for Australia.

However, this poll also shows overwhelming support for the US-Australia alliance and recognition of Washington’s importance, illustrating the political tightrope the Australian Prime Minister will have to walk on Monday.

“Kissing the ring would be counterproductive domestically,” said Nishank Motwani, a senior fellow and director of coalition strategy at ASPI USA, an Australian government-funded think tank. At the same time, Albanese will want to leave Trump with a sense of Canberra’s value to Washington while avoiding the discomfort in the Oval Office – or worse – that some other leaders have endured.

There are many potential avenues for discomfort. Albanese has only committed Australia to increasing defense spending to 2.3% of its GDP from its current level of 2%, despite the Trump administration demanding that figure be 3.5%. The Australian leader has also sought to repair relations with China that were low under his predecessor Scott Morrison, an acknowledgment that Beijing is an indispensable economic partner although it is also seen as a major security threat.

But the biggest problem by far is submarines.

CRITICAL AUKUS. The Trump administration caused a great deal of consternation in Canberra this summer when it confirmed it was conducting a review of the AUKUS agreement, an agreement between Australia, the UK and the US to supply Australia with nuclear-capable submarines from 2032 as well as joint development of more submarines and cooperation on critical defense-related technologies.

While many experts say it is usual but not unreasonable for a new government to review such an important deal, Australian concerns stem from Trump’s ambivalence toward traditional American alliances and his disdain for deals negotiated by his predecessors. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon official overseeing the review, has also publicly questioned AUKUS in the past.

Regardless of Colby’s comments, “AUKUS is so important to Australia and the UK that any review would receive a lot of attention,” said Abraham Denmark, who served as a senior AUKUS adviser to the Pentagon during the Biden administration.

Recent reports suggest that the deal has been agreed, and an announcement to that effect could be made during Albanese’s visit. However, a Pentagon official overseeing the area had a much less specific assessment earlier this month, saying the review was ongoing.

Australians have shown ambivalence in their position on the Australian University in Australia as well, especially its price tag, estimated at $240 billion over three decades. An opinion poll published in July showed that 60% of respondents doubted that Washington would eventually deliver the submarines.

“The Australian public has not fully bought into AUKUS because the government has not done a good job of explaining why it is important,” Motwane said.

AUKUS also consumes a lot of oxygen in a broader partnership. “AUKUS has at times been a stalking horse for broader discussions in Australia about the alliance with the US and about China,” said Denmark, now a partner at The Asia Group, a Washington-based consultancy.

Deal with sweeteners. Albanese has a lot to offer that could appeal to Trump’s commercial nature, especially Australia’s stock of rare earth elements and critical minerals that power key technologies and military applications. China dominates the extraction and production of rare earths, and has demonstrated its willingness to use them as a weapon, as it has repeatedly done during trade negotiations with Washington. Australia is said to be preparing an agreement to provide investors in partner nations with access to the country’s important minerals. This would give Trump a hedge, if not a complete alternative, to China.

But the big question remains whether that will be enough. “Trump views all alliances as leverage,” Motwane said. “If you give too much at your first meeting, he will come back for more.”

Ashley Tillis, a State Department senior adviser on South Asia and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was arrested and charged with illegally retaining national defense information. Tillis, who also worked as a contractor at the Pentagon and previously served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, allegedly had more than 1,000 pages of classified or top-secret documents at his home in Virginia.

“We are aware of the allegations against Ashley J. Tellis. He is now on administrative leave, including from his position as Tata’s chief strategy officer,” Caitlin Vogt, Carnegie’s vice president for communications, said in a statement provided to SitRep.

In other news, dozens of reporters surrendered their press badges to the Pentagon this week after rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the media. The new policy threatens to revoke the credentials of journalists who seek to obtain and report information not approved for public release (a key aspect of the job). The vast majority of the media — including Fox News, Hegseth’s former employer — refused to approve the new restrictions. Even right-leaning outlets like Newsmax didn’t sign up.

The Pentagon Press Association said a majority of its members rejected Hegseth’s policy “because of its implicit threat to criminalize national security reporting and expose those who sign it to potential prosecution.” The Pentagon has referred to the new rules as “common sense basic guidelines for protecting sensitive information.”

Hegseth confirmed in a tweet on Thursday that Admiral Alvin Hulsey, head of the US military’s Southern Command, will step down from his position at the end of this year after 37 years of service. Hulsey was overseeing the Trump administration’s controversial operations against what it claims are drug smuggling boats off the coast of Venezuela, and New York Times He stated that he expressed reservations about those operations.

What should be on your radar, if it isn’t already.

A truce in Gaza on fragile ground Hamas said on Wednesday that it had returned all the remains of dead hostages that it was able to recover, and that it would need special equipment to access the remaining dead captives.

Since the start of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last week, the movement has returned 20 hostages alive and the remains of nine out of 28 deceased hostages. A delay in the return of all hostages, a crucial aspect of the first phase of the Trump-orchestrated peace deal, could prevent the process from moving to the next phase and potentially upend the truce.

On Thursday, Trump also issued a threat to Hamas, which has engaged in a crackdown on its rivals in recent days. “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not part of the deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” he said in a post on Truth Social. It is not clear whether Trump meant that US forces would enter Gaza to fight Hamas. The White House did not immediately respond to SitRep’s request for comment.

Trump talks with Putin. Trump said on Thursday that he had a “very productive” phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and they are now scheduled to meet in Budapest at an unspecified date for further talks on ending the war in Ukraine. The call came ahead of a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, where they are expected to discuss whether Washington will supply long-range Tomahawk missiles to Kiev.

As our foreign policy colleague Sam Skov wrote, the Tomahawk missiles have a range of about 1,500 miles, and would enhance Ukraine’s ability to strike targets deep inside Russia, including Moscow. The Kremlin warned that supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would be seen as a major escalation.

Trump has expressed impatience with Putin over the lack of progress toward a peace agreement and has repeatedly indicated that he is open to supplying Tomahawk missiles to Kiev to put more pressure on Moscow. But Putin also has a history of winning Trump over to his side on various issues. Even if Trump agrees to send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, he may impose restrictions on their use.

CIA in Venezuela. Trump said on Wednesday that he had allowed the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. Such operations are not usually announced, and Trump’s confession was another example of his unconventional approach to the presidency.

Trump said he authorized the operations for two reasons. “No. 1, they have emptied their prisons in the United States of America,” he said. “The other thing is drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming from Venezuela, and a lot of Venezuelan drugs are coming by sea.” Trump’s announcement came as the US military continued to launch strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela allegedly belonging to drug traffickers. Critics condemned the strikes as an unnecessary and illegal use of military force.

The president also indicated on Wednesday that the United States may soon strike ground targets in Venezuela. There are many open questions about Trump’s goals in Venezuela and whether the ultimate goal is regime change. The Trump administration has offered a $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on drug trafficking charges.

US President Donald Trump gestures as he stands in front of a family photo during the welcoming ceremony for the Gaza Peace Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on October 13.Yoann Valat/AFP via Getty Images

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Monday 20 October: Trump is scheduled to meet Albanian at the White House.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is scheduled to meet in Beijing for its annual plenary session.

The European Union Foreign Affairs Council is scheduled to begin a meeting that will last several days.

Wednesday 22 October: The European Council Leaders’ Summit is scheduled to be held in Brussels.

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“I think we should support the arrest warrants issued by the ICC.”

– New York City mayoral candidate Zahran Mamdani told Fox News in an interview that he would support the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to New York while Mamdani was mayor.