President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have unveiled a suite of landmark agreements to strengthen the strategic and economic partnership between the United States and Australia.
Investments in Critical Minerals
Under the partnership, both nations will invest over $3 billion over the next six months to advance critical mineral projects. The Export-Import Bank of the United States will issue seven Letters of Interest totaling over $2.2 billion to support the effort.
The Department of Defense will also construct a gallium refinery in Western Australia to ensure that both nations can become self-reliant in critical minerals processing. The refinery is expected to produce 100 metric tons of gallium per year.
The material is used in a wide range of defense systems, from radars and missile seekers to satellite solar cells.
Investments in Defense
In the security domain, Australia committed to purchasing unmanned underwater vehicles and Apache helicopters from the U.S. for $3.8 billion.
According to the White House, Canberra has contributed $1 billion toward modernizing the U.S. submarine industrial base since February, and plans to allocate $1 billion more to advance the effort by the end of 2025.
Investments in Economic Growth
Trump and Albanese also agreed to increase investments to drive innovation and economic growth.
Under the deal, Australia will raise its U.S. investments by almost $1 trillion to $1.44 trillion by 2035. Canberra is also expanding access for U.S. ranchers to the Australian market.
Moreover, the governments plan to launch a bilateral Technology Prosperity Deal to cooperate in developing artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other critical technologies.