‘No closer ally than Australia’

Biden meets Morrison following Aukus pact

Joe Biden and the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, have welcomed their new security ties after last week’s announcement that Washington would provide Canberra with technology for nuclear-powered submarines as part of trilateral deal with the UK.

“The US has no closer or more reliable ally than Australia,” Biden said yesterday ahead of a bilateral meeting with Morrison on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York.

The deal has infuriated Paris, and Biden has yet to be able to arrange a call with the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

Morrison has been accused of going behind the backs of the French to cancel a €31bn (£27bn) contract with Paris to supply 12 submarines, and replacing it with a deal for nuclear powered ones with the US and the UK.

Morrison came under a ferocious attack yesterday by the former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd who, writing in the Le

Monde, said the prime minister had behaved in a cavalier manner that would play into the hands of China propagandists. “Morrison failed to understand the wider implications of his decision for foreign policy,” Rudd wrote.

The attack came as Macron made his first moves in response to the snub, speaking with the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, in what appeared to be an effort to shore up a rival Indian-French alliance in the Indo-Pacific – and secure a pending profitable nuclear deal. The two leaders vowed to “act jointly” in the Indo-Pacific region, the French presidency said. France has been bidding for a $7bn (£5bn) contract to build 6 nuclear powered submarines with India. The phone call seemed a potential French effort to shore up its bid.

Delhi wants the submarines because it is worried about the rise of China, whose military ships are increasing joint exercises with the Pakistani navy in the Indian Ocean.