US-Australia Agreement a 'Positive Downpayment' on Broader Indo-Pacific Deterrence Against China

President Trump signed a rare earth agreement with Australia after hosting the country's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the White House today. Joining us now to discuss the US-Australia alliance is Steve Yates, Senior Research Fellow for China and National Security Policy at the Heritage Foundation and former Deputy National Security Advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Steve, thank you so much for joining us now. This agreement on rare earths will be finalized in four to five months. How big of a deal is this in terms of countering China's weaponization of rare earth market in recent weeks? I think today's agreement is strategically significant. It's a very, very important advancement in the cause of having our own capabilities within a secure supply chain. The challenge with rare earths is not that they are rare, it is that our processing facilities are overly rare and overly concentrated inside China. I think this addresses the supply part of this, but we still have a long way to go to accelerate the processing. I think that with the strategic agreement on submarines, the rare earth mining and materials, and some of the other areas in the US-Australia alliance, I think that is a positive down payment on broader Indo-Pacific deterrence, but also broader Indo-Pacific prosperity outside of China. You mentioned submarines because besides minerals, another key topic is that trilateral security partnership between the US-Australia and the United Kingdom known as AUKUS. Now, that actually started during the Biden administration and includes providing Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. How do you see this deal fit in with deterrence in the region against a more belligerent China? Well, it fits in the philosophy that President Trump has talked about from the outset of making sure our allies have stronger independent capabilities. There has been pressure, sometimes welcome, sometimes unwelcome, but I consider it to be necessary on allies to increase their own investment in their defense capabilities. There had been questions about whether this AUKUS arrangement would continue in the Trump administration. The President today was very clear that his team, his administration had picked up where the Biden administration had left off. He said that nothing had been happening and that his team was accelerating these processes. There was some skeptical press in the cabinet room that was asking, are you committed to this? And he said, yes, repeatedly. And he made clear he was accelerating some of those processes. So I see that as a positive sign of deterrence across the broader Indo-Pacific system of alliances. And that matters because of the news that you are reporting about the South China Sea and the things that we've seen generally across the first island chain. And Steve, looking ahead, President Trump is expected to meet with Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping at the end of this month in South Korea. Now, Trump telling reporters yesterday he has three demands before that meeting, rare earths, fentanyl and soybeans, that is to stop playing the rare earth game, stop with the fentanyl precursors that flood the U.S. and start buying U.S. soybeans. What would it take? What type of pressure would be needed to get that? Well, I support all three of those priorities. And of course, fentanyl for me personally is an extremely high priority because of my family's own experience. But the president is right to push all three. And frankly, the Chinese would be extremely unwise to ignore this. They have delayed for several, several months. They've unleashed their social media hounds to try to criticize America for all three of these issues, saying there's something wrong with us. But I'm hoping that maybe some reality has seeped through the cracks of the Chinese system to say, you know what, you need access to our market. And if the president stays firm on this November 100 percent tariff, even just temporarily, that's quite a shock to the Chinese system, which only really survives as an export economy. And so I hope that he holds firm. It may take longer than this first meeting at APEC to get the progress that we need. But so far, the sounds that I hear from the president this week resonate with what I would have by way of priorities, too. So I thank him. Well, Steve Yates, as always, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.