AUSTRALIA: PM Albanese Arrives At White House For State Visit

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is shortly due to arrive at the White House for a state visit. Albanese's state visit was offered after President Biden was forced to cancel a high-profile visit to Australia in May to attend to negotiations to raise the federal debt ceiling.

• The tripartite AUKUS nuclear submarine pact with the UK and efforts to counter China in the Indo-Pacific is expected to dominate the agenda, as well as greater cooperation on security issues related to Russia and Ukraine. Areas which have seen significant alignment between Washington and Canberra in recent years.
• White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters yesterday that the state dinner would go ahead despite concern over an escalation of the war between Israel and Hamas.
• Jean-Pierre said: “We believe that there is no more important time than now to have this state visit with the Australians, and to demonstrate, of course, our strength and partnership and alliances.”
• State visits are general accompanied with a package of deliverables - likely to include enhanced defence cooperation and a technical safeguard agreement on commercial space operations.
• Bec Shrimpton, national security director at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told Breaking Defense: “I suspect this will link to the finalization or implementation of the technical safeguards agreement which will allow US commercial launch companies to operate from Australian launch sites. I don’t have any info specifically but am hearing its likely to related to the TSA.”