Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles, Japanese Minister of Defense Nakatani Gen, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth convened the fifteenth Trilateral Defence Ministerial Meeting (TDMM) in Singapore on 31 May 2025 during the 22nd International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia Security Summit (2025 Shangri-La Dialogue).
Through this meeting, we also mark our first ministerial session of Trilateral Defence Consultations (TDC), announced in November 2024. United by a shared commitment to each other and to collective deterrence, we acknowledge the remarkable progress made by our three countries to advance trilateral interoperability and operational coordination. Building on the discussion and joint statements of two Trilateral Defence Ministers' Meetings in 2024, we reaffirm our efforts to deepen our practical cooperation and deliver on our ambitious agenda. The trilateral partnership ensures we are prepared to address the most consequential challenges in the Indo-Pacific.
We acknowledge the severe and complex security environment in the Indo-Pacific and the importance of the Australia-Japan-United States partnership to maintain and reinforce a free and open Indo-Pacific. We reinforce our commitment to working with partners and to demonstrating strong leadership to reinforce defence and deterrence capabilities of our respective countries.
Strategic Alignment and Operational Cooperation
We welcome practical progress under our TDC to support trilateral alignment of policy and operational objectives. We are bolstering cooperation across the Indo-Pacific, including enhancing activities in the area surrounding Japan and increasing Japan's participation in Australia-United States force posture activities. Under the TDC, we reiterate our commitment to coordinate existing regional activities, align strategic communications, and discuss effective cooperation through initiatives including Table Top Exercises on responses to regional contingencies. As a priority, we direct each defence authority to further explore the reinforcement of systems, to support trilateral policy and operational coordination.
Australia and the United States welcome the establishment of the Japan-Self Defense Forces (JSDF) Joint Operations Command (JJOC) in March 2025. We look forward to continued improvement of trilateral operational coordination between our respective command centres, including with the upgraded United States Forces Japan and the reciprocal exchange of liaison officers between JJOC and Australia Headquarters Joint Operations Command.
We reiterate our commitment to increase bilateral and trilateral joint capabilities, including through:
- Further facilitating access of Australian Defence Force (ADF) and other partners' forces to Japan to undertake more practical activities with JSDF in order to strengthen deterrence and response capabilities in the area surrounding Japan.
- The first trilateral F-35 activity in Australia at Exercise Southern Cross in northern Australia (July 2026).
- Continuing progress on trilateral F-35 training, including inaugural trilateral F-35 training at Exercise Cope North 2025 (February) and the upcoming first trilateral Exercise Bushido Guardian 2025 (September).
- Reciprocal deployments of trilateral air assets, including airlift and F-35s.
- The largest ever JSDF contribution to bilateral Australia-U.S. Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025, including amphibious training involving all three countries, as announced at the November TDMM 2024.
- Increasing trilateral Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) cooperation.
- Cooperation on reciprocal asset protection.
- Closer operational cooperation among our three countries and the Philippines, including through Japan's participation in high-end exercises in the Philippines with Australia and the United States.
- Continuing defence cooperation among Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States in the South China Sea, including through regular Maritime Cooperative Activities to support regional maritime security and uphold international law.
Defence advanced capabilities and industrial resilience
We welcome pursuing trilateral cooperation on the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM), including exploring opportunities for live fire training. We aim to leverage our respective strengths of Australia's long-range strike capabilities, Japan's stand-off defence capabilities, and U.S. systems to increase trilateral deterrence and response capabilities.
We commend steady progress to build a networked air and missile defence architecture to counter regional air and missile threats. We welcome accelerated efforts to establish an information sharing mechanism through technical working level consultations to further develop the trilateral architecture. We look forward to conducting a live fire exercise in 2027 at Exercise Talisman Sabre.
We acknowledge progress on cooperative projects under the trilateral Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) Arrangement and intend to finalise planning and commence joint research on composite aerospace materials by mid- 2026. We commend the completion of the Trilateral Concept on Human Machine Teaming in the Air Domain by our respective air services as steady progress towards our aims for collaborative combat aircraft and autonomous systems, and we are pleased to implement this Trilateral Concept.
Australia and the United States celebrate the success of Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) Japan 2025, and we confirm our intention to promote multilateral defence industry cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, in terms of production, sustainment, and supply chain cooperation opportunities, including the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR) work stream efforts, with the participation of our respective public and private sectors. We look forward to deepening these defence industrial partnerships, including by exploring collaborative opportunities across our respective defence industrial bases.
We recognise the importance of a resilient supply of critical minerals to achieve required defence capabilities, and we welcome efforts to realise the stable supply of critical minerals by multiple stakeholders across related government agencies and industry sectors.
Cooperation with regional partners
We affirm our shared ambition to further expand cooperation with regional partners in the Indo-Pacific, such as India, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea, in order to reinforce deterrence and stability in the Indo-Pacific. We welcome continued engagement of our three countries with Pacific Island countries, as exemplified by Japan's participation in Exercise Puk Puk and Operation Render Safe in 2025.
