Background

AUKUS is a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, announced in September 2021. The agreement includes provisions for the U.S. and UK to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines and collaborate on advanced military technologies. The deal is valued at approximately $368 billion and is considered a key strategic alliance to counter China's influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Trump has previously expressed support for AUKUS through his administration, with incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirming Trump's backing of the pact. However, Trump has a history of threatening to withdraw from or renegotiate international agreements, including NATO commitments and defense arrangements with South Korea and Japan.

Resolution Criteria

This market will resolve YES if Donald Trump makes statements before 2029 that I, a reasonable centre-left British observer who will not bet, understand to contain an explicit or implicit threat to cancel AUKUS.

Here AUKUS is understood to either be the overall security pact or the narrow nuclear submarine cooperation. If Trump threatened a separate part of AUKUS in a way that clearly didn't implicate either of the above that would not trigger a YES resolution.

An explicit threat is obvious. An implicit threat might not be. In general I am thinking of statements like "why are we spending $X on..." or "America is being ripped off by..." I think most of the time I would understand Trump criticizing AUKUS publicly as containing an implicit threat. I strongly invite bettors to try to constrain me with examples in the comments.

Trump criticizing Australia or the UK without mentioning AUKUS seems very unlikely to qualify.