News live: King Charles praises ‘ambitious’ Aukus and expresses pride in Australia in speech to US Congress

King Charles praises 'ambitious' Aukus in speech to US Congress King Charles’ address to the US Congress has been covered over in our US politics blog ( check it out here ). But it’s worth noting that Australia got a shout-out, and specifically the Aukus nuclear submarine program, in a section of the speech that pointedly dwelt on the importance of defence ties between the US and UK (and Nato more broadly). The king said: double quotation mark Our defence, intelligence and security ties are hardwired together through relationships measured not in years, but in decades. Today, thousands of US service personnel, defence officials and their families are stationed in the United Kingdom, as British personnel serve with equal pride across 30 American states. We are building F-35s together. And we have agreed the most ambitious submarine programme in history, Aukus. And we do so in partnership with Australia, a country of which I am also immensely proud to serve as sovereign . We do not embark on these remarkable endeavours together out of sentiment. We do so because they build greater shared resilience for the future, so making our citizens safer for generations to come. Share Updated at 21.46 BST Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature The projects would need to comply with proposed new national environmental standards, which government sources insist will be in place before the bilateral agreements are negotiated. …