Former Australian foreign affairs minister Bob Carr says Australia will never receive the American nuclear submarines promised under Aukus, arguing that officials in Canberra and Washington are maintaining a diplomatic fiction. The Australian government insists the agreement remains on track.

In an interview with Guardian Australia’s Australian Politics podcast, Carr described the $368-billion agreement as the two countries “living a lie”. His prediction is not an announced change to the submarine programme.

“It’s now conventional wisdom in Washington as well as in Canberra that we’re not going to get the subs, and we’ll be assembling some alternative,” Carr said.

Carr, a prominent critic of Aukus who served as foreign minister under Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, expects American-operated submarines to be stationed at Australian bases instead. He argued that a future U.S. president would consider China’s military strength too great to permit the transfer of three or more Virginia-class submarines.

According to the Guardian’s reporting, submarine transfers require presidential approval and are subject to the U.S. military’s domestic requirements. Production delays and cost overruns affecting submarines for the U.S. navy have fuelled doubts about whether Australia will receive the vessels.

The first Virginia-class submarine is scheduled to arrive in Australia in 2032, followed by another every four years. The purpose-built SSN Aukus model is due to come online in 2042.

Australia has already paid more than $3 billion to support American submarine manufacturing, against promised payments of about $4.6 billion over the agreement’s lifetime, the Guardian reported. Billions more are being spent on infrastructure, workforce development and construction.

Carr also argued that concentrating spending on submarines was putting pressure on other defence capabilities and risked investing heavily in a platform that technological advances could overtake.

The Albanese government says Aukus is proceeding as intended and points to U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge of full support.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said this week that Aukus was “absolutely happening”, describing it as Australia’s biggest industrial project and its largest military capability advance since the navy’s establishment more than a century ago. He said it would improve security while providing thousands of highly skilled jobs.

Sources