Aukus deal is ‘living a lie’: Australia will never get nuclear submarines from US and both sides know it, Bob Carr says

Exclusive: Former Labor foreign affairs minister says $368bn deal has been reduced to a diplomatic joke

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The former Labor foreign affairs minister Bob Carr says officials in Canberra and Washington acknowledge that the US will never send nuclear submarines to Australia, describing the $368bn Aukus agreement as the two countries “living a lie”.

Carr, a leading critic of the deal, expects American-operated vessels will instead be stationed at bases in Australia, with a future US president likely to determine that China’s military might would make it too difficult for three or more Virginia-class nuclear submarines to be transferred to Australia.

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