Human rights fears over Australia’s role in F-35 parts after Trump’s decision to sell fighter jets to Saudi Arabia | Weapons technology

Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to sell F-35 joint strike fighter jets to Saudi Arabia will rely on critical Australian components, prompting experts to warn Australia could be complicit in human rights abuses.

The US president announced the deal during a meeting with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman this week, despite persistent concerns about the Saudi regime’s human rights record (including bombings against civilian targets) and fears that it might share technology with China.

Australia is part of F-35 production, but has no control over where and to whom parts are sent, or even parts that leave Australian territory.

more than that 70 Australian companies It has production and sustainment contracts with the F-35 program. More than 700 “critical parts” of the fighter jet Made exclusively in VictoriaAccording to the state government. Australia also hosts a regional distribution center for F-35 parts in NSW.

“Every F-35 contains significant parts made in Australia,” said Duncan Frewin, clerk of Quakers Australia, a pacifist group investigating arms exports.

“Any bombs dropped by these planes can only do so because the Australian government writes a blank check to Lockheed Martin and sells them Australian-made parts with no human rights restrictions or monitoring.”

Frewin said Saudi Arabia has a “deplorable human rights record and selling them the world’s deadliest plane is reckless.”

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National president of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Dr. Sue Wareham said Saudi Arabia had a “terrible human rights record”, particularly in prosecuting the war in Yemen.

“It is not reasonable to claim that the weapons in the hands of the Saudi rulers will only be used lawfully and in accordance with human rights principles.”

Frewin and Wareham are advocates of peace and disarmament, but their concerns are shared by more hawkish defense analysts who worry that Australia is losing control of the militaries it supports.

Michael Shoebridge, founder of defense and security think tank Strategic Analysis Australia, said the sale of up to 48 F-35s to Saudi Arabia presented problems for Australia that “we are desperately trying to ignore with the Israelis”.

“We would support the Saudis using aircraft however they choose to use them, and Saudi involvement in the Yemeni civil war in recent years shows that this is not an assumption,” Shoebridge said.

Shoebridge, a former senior defense policy official at the Australian embassy in Washington, has previously said the complex F-35 supply chain allows governments to refuse direct support to foreign militaries.

At Senate estimates last month, acting assistant secretary of defense Hugh Jeffrey told senators that the global F-35 supply chain is a “unique arrangement.”

“This is a global supply chain. We agree with that. The goods are moved around the world. These are US-owned goods. They are managed by Lockheed Martin. Australia does not direct the export of these goods. It does not control the export of these goods.”

Goods manufactured in Australia require an export permit. The Ministry of Defense did not answer questions about whether Australia could refuse or refuse to supply parts for jets destined for Saudi Arabia.

And the United States itself does not comprehensively track where its weapons go and how they are used.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Blue Lantern The program, which tracks the end use of commercial arms sales, examined less than 2% of export applications in its last report (reports must be submitted to Congress each year, but last public report from 2022).

Of the 18,143 export permits approved, 305 were subject to targeted controls (1.6%). 30% of those checked were found to be “negative”, meaning there were discrepancies between the goods shipped and what was allowed in the licence.

USA this year Government Accountability Office He found that efforts to stop U.S.-made weapons from being implicated in human rights abuses were insufficient.

The Trump administration’s decision to sell F-35s to Saudi Arabia has become controversial around the world, in part due to Saudi-led bombing campaigns against Yemeni targets that have killed thousands.

Estimated between 2015 and 2022 377,000 people died As a result of the conflict: Nearly 15,000 civilians were killed in direct military action, mostly in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, according to findings by the Campaign Against Arms Trade.

Additionally, a report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, part of the Pentagon, flagged concerns that China could access F-35 technology through Saudi Arabia due to Riyadh and Beijing’s security partnership.

Described by Lockheed Martin as the “most lethal” fighter jet in the world, costing between US$80 million and US$100 million (AU$123 million to US$155) each, the F-35 is already a controversial platform and was also featured in the findings of the UN commission of inquiry. Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

Wareham, of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, said the arms trade agreement prevented Australia from exporting “weapons or related articles” if there was a risk of breaching international law.

“There is no doubt that such a risk exists in the case of Saudi Arabia,” Wareham said. “This makes Australia complicit in any crime in which F-35s are used.”

Wareham said Australia could not rely on US defense export controls.

“The US economy is so dependent on arms sales that there appear to be few restrictions. The US is actually selling weapons while promoting democracy.” More than half of the world’s autocracies. “This is an industry out of control.”