At a historic meeting in San Diego, President

joe

Biden and the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Australia announced this on Monday

That

they are accelerating plans to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines to help the nations counter a military buildup by China in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia will initially purchase three US Virginia-class submarines that will be armed with conventional weapons but without nuclear missiles. Contracts for two more multi-billion dollar subs may be added at a later date.

The three countries will also collaborate on the design of a newly built submarine

The submarines will be built

with components from every country requiring the US to share highly sensitive technology with the UK and Australia, who are longtime NATO allies. The US hasn’t made deals like this since helping the UK develop nuclear submarines in 1958.

The first of the new submarines will be built in the United Kingdom

the two

others follow in Australia. Construction will begin in the early 2030s as the UK needs to expand its industrial capacity and Australia create the ability to build ships of this size.

Monday’s agreement stems from the so-called Australia-United Kingdom-United States Partnership, or AUKUS, which was formed in late 2021 with the aim of jointly finding ways to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, a vast continental part of South East Asia.

Biden praised the partnership as he stood between British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on a pier at San Diego Naval Base at Point Loma in a very rare and public joint speech. He called AUKUS a powerful entity and noted how much progress it has made in such a short time.

Australia and the United Kingdom are two of America’s most staunch and able allies, Biden told the crowd of about 150 dignitaries, naval officers and

congressmen members of congress

. They included Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and Caroline Kennedy, the US Ambassador to Australia.

“AUKUS has one overarching goal: to improve stability in the Indo-Pacific amid rapidly changing dynamics,” he added.

“For more than a century, our three nations have stood shoulder to shoulder, along with other allies and partners, to help maintain peace, stability and prosperity around the world, including in the Indo-Pacific,” the world leaders said in a statement. declaration. joint statement, prior to their personal comments. “We believe in a world that protects freedom and respects human rights, the rule of law, the independence of sovereign states and the rules-based international order. The steps we are announcing today will help us advance these mutually beneficial goals in the decades to come .”

The pact is propelled by concerns that China could at some point invade Taiwan, triggering a global military crisis. The allies also say that the military bases China is building on artificial islands in the South China Sea could be used to thwart trade and movement of ships and aircraft in that part of the world.

“This is a very, very big problem,” said Tai Ming Cheung,

cq

a China expert at UC San Diego.

“The US, as we have seen with NATO, has mainly dealt with armies in alliances, but has historically been unwilling to form industrial partnerships and share the most sensitive, technological secrets.”

He added: “The US needs to have a more global footprint [militarily]. It needs many more allies to help them in the Indo-Pacific.”

The US currently has 71 submarines. China is rapidly building its own ships and is expected to surpass the US in total submarines by the end of this decade.

The deal “is made to help our closest allies [be] more powerful and able to convince Beijing that it is no longer operating in a permissive security environment,” said Charles Edel, a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., at a news conference.

The new security pact is implemented in three sentences. The first is just getting underway as the US begins to allow US submarines to go to bases in Australia. The United Kingdom will do the same. Australian sailors will enlist in both countries’ navies and study at schools specializing in nuclear-powered submarines, the Biden administration said. In 2027, the US and UK will start posting

their own

submarines in Australian ports on a rotating basis.

Australia

currently

has six Collins-class diesel submarines, which are nowhere near the offensive and defensive capabilities of America’s various types of nuclear “boats,” including the four Los Angeles-class ships homeported in San Diego.

Those submarines operate out of San Diego Naval Base in San Diego Bay.

The US is building submarines in Virginia and Connecticut, which defense analysts say are at or near capacity. First Lady Jill Biden is a sponsor of a Virginia-class submarine,

the USS

Delaware, the president noted Monday, “and she never lets me forget.”

Air Force One touched down at 12:05 a.m. at nearby Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado. Biden was greeted on the tarmac by the commander of the Naval Surface Forces, Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener and Capt. Charles McKissick, Commander of Coronado Naval Base. He then left in the motorcade for Point Loma with his daughter Ashley Biden and granddaughter Natalie, who is on spring break.

The motorcade passed small groups of protesters along the way, including some supporters of the former president

Donald

Trump and those protesting the construction of a new border wall at Friendship Park. Other people filmed the procession through the city streets on their phones and waved.

Biden was scheduled to meet separately with Albanese and Sunak after their joint performance at 1:45 p.m. He is then greeted by

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and other local elected officials at San Diego International Airport late afternoon.

Biden will round out his visit to San Diego by attending a Democratic National Committee reception Monday evening at Rancho Santa Fe.

On Tuesday, the president will visit Monterey Park, the site of a mass shooting that killed 11 people and injured nine.

Los Angeles Times writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report.