SYDNEY, June 16. /TASS/. Agreements within the AUKUS military partnership (Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States alliance) will be one of the key topics of the first bilateral talks between the leaders of Australia and the United States, which will take place on the sidelines of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Canada, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced.

According to him, the key topics of his first meeting with US President Donald Trump will be the implementation of the AUKUS agreements and US tariffs on goods made in Australia.

" What AUKUS offers the United States is, firstly, the support that we're providing for their industrial capacity. Secondly, the increased capacity to have their subs in the water as well because of the maintenance facilities that will take place at Henderson (located on the Western coast of Australia, 35 km south from Perth - TASS)," Albanese said during an online briefing for reporters.

The Australian prime minister also stressed that as part of its participation in AUKUS, Canberra provides broader support to the US armed forces, "including fuel reserves in the Northern Territory, including the presence of US Forces in Darwin as well."

"There's a range of benefits that come. And indeed, having Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States all having increased nuclear powered submarines, in our case conventionally armed, is something that will make the Indo Pacific area more secure," he said.

The second issue Albanese hopes to discuss with the US President is the tariffs the US has imposed on Australian goods.

"Now, our position when it comes to tariffs is very clear. We see tariffs as acts of economic self-harm by the country imposing the tariffs because what it does is lead to increased costs for the country that is making those decision," Albanese said. He noted that he would first and foremost ask for tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium to be lifted.

AUKUS was established in September 2021 to implement the defense initiatives of Australia, the UK and the US in two areas. The first one is to provide Australia with a fleet of nuclear-powered attack submarines. The second one deals with the development of military assets in eight areas, such as underwater systems, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and electronic warfare, hypersonic aircraft and capabilities to intercept them, and information exchange technologies.

The White House under Biden admitted that this bloc could be expanded in the future to include American partners in Europe and Asia. Russia and China indicated that Western countries set a course for creating an Asian equivalent of NATO. As Beijing has repeatedly stressed, the true goal of the US strategy in the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions is to "encircle China," including by creating an "Asia-Pacific version of NATO and undermining regional integration."