Australia's top diplomat in the United Kingdom, Stephen Smith, says he believes the multi-billion-dollar AUKUS defence pact will "absolutely" survive the whims of a Donald Trump presidency.
The trilateral agreement has come under significant scrutiny, particularly in Australia and the United States.
Its primary objective of ramping up nuclear-powered submarine production has been described as unrealistic, and its estimated $368 billion price tag for Australia has been criticised as too expensive.
Mr Smith, a defence minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments, has been Australia's High Commissioner to the UK since January 2023.
He will leave that position at the end of this week, and said AUKUS was in safe hands.
"As President Trump said in his meeting at the West Wing with the Prime Minister, so far as he's concerned with AUKUS, it's full steam ahead," he told the ABC in London this week.
Mr Smith's confidence comes despite all three countries involved in the pact conducting reviews of it.
Defence Minister Richard Marles has received the findings of the Pentagon's much-anticipated probe, which are not expected to be made public.
Fears the investigation could put the deal in jeopardy were eased during Mr Trump's first official face-to-face meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in October.
However, the Trump administration has foreshadowed possible refinements to the pact.
"Consistent with President Trump's guidance that AUKUS should move 'full steam ahead,' the review identified opportunities to put AUKUS on the strongest possible footing," Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said.
Speaking on Thursday, Mr Marles declined to detail the contents of the review or to confirm when it would be made public by Washington, saying Canberra was still working through its findings.
Securing the release of Julian Assange also dominated Stephen Smith's time as high commissioner.
In 2023, he became the first Australian official to visit Mr Assange since 2019.
"We had to persuade the United States that they should relent on their extradition order," Mr Smith said.
"My role here was to let Julian Assange know that we took his consular case very, very seriously. It was a high priority for us."
But he never imagined the case would see him escort Mr Assange to Saipan — a tiny island that forms part of an unincorporated US territory in the Western Pacific — where he'd eventually formalise a plea deal with American officials.
"The Brits would not let him out of Belmarsh until the Westminster central court or the Westminster local court essentially accepted an undertaking from me that I would travel with him all the way until the completion of the court case in Saipan and hold his travel documents," Mr Smith said.
"We never envisaged when we started the conversation that it would be Stansted in London to Bangkok to Saipan to Canberra, but in the event that's how it unfolded."
Mr Assange, an Australian who founded the WikiLeaks website, spent almost seven years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London as he attempted to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was facing rape charges that he denied, and later the US, which was mulling criminal charges against him under its espionage act.
The US indictment was eventually made public in April 2019. That same month, Mr Assange was arrested inside Ecuador's embassy by UK police and transferred to Belmarsh Prison, where he stayed until a plea bargain was agreed in June last year.
Before Mr Smith took up the posting, Australia's High Commission in London had a reputation for hosting plenty of parties.
Mr Smith rejected the suggestion he was hired to clean up the bureau, but he did say he prioritised business over pleasure while in the role.
"I had a very single-minded view, which was we have a range of strategic objectives. We've got a big responsibility on AUKUS, a big responsibility on security and strategic matters," he said.
"We didn't have time for what I described then as 'parties without a purpose' or as one of my favourite English Premier League coaches last season said, 'no pints before points'."
Mr Smith described himself as the only High Commissioner who's been "criticised" or "accused" of not partying enough.
"Generally, it's the reverse, but look, people are entitled to their views," Mr Smith said.
"It's less required now that someone from Australia House holds a business person's hand as they walk down the Strand. They're capable of engaging themselves."
Former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill will take up the position of High Commissioner to the UK in the new year.
