President Joe Biden announced Australia would purchase at least three nuclear-powered submarines from the U.S. as part of a trilateral national security agreement with the U.K. that invests in the three countries defense forces amid efforts to counter China's influence in the Indo-Pacific.

"AUKUS has one overriding objective: to enhance the stability of the Indo-Pacific amid rapidly shifting global dynamics," Biden said Monday in San Diego, California. "This first project, this first project is only the beginning."

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Flanked by Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese of Australia and Rishi Sunak of the U.K. at North Island Naval Air Station, the president added: "I'm proud to be your shipmates."

Biden quipped that the Australia-United Kingdom-United-States pact, known as "AUKUS," has "an unusual name, but it's a powerful entity." But the president became serious as he underscored that the submarines that will be bought and built together are poised to be nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed, after bellicose rhetoric from both Chinese President Xi Jinping and his new top diplomat, Qin Gang.

AUKUS was announced on Sept. 15, 2021, scuttling a deal between Australia and France for diesel-powered submarines. The accord also created tensions between the U.S. and France, in addition to rankling the wider European Union, which had planned to roll out its own Indo-Pacific strategy.

Monday's announcement concludes an 18-month consultation period. First steps include embedding personnel and a series of port visits this year, the formation of submarine rotational forces from 2027, and Australia buying up to five Virginia class submarines in the 2030s.

"Nuclear propulsion is a highly complicated technology that takes years of training to master," Biden said. "So we're starting right away."

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National security adviser Jake Sullivan downplayed the prospect of escalating tensions with China, with relations already strained between the U.S. and China after a spy balloon was downed last month.

"This is a decadeslong, maybe a century-long commitment," Sullivan said aboard Air Force One en route to San Diego. "And it reinforces the fundamental view, we believe, in Canberra that the United States and Australia, standing shoulder to shoulder for the purposes of safeguarding peace and stability — not to provoke, not to go try to fight wars, but rather to deter conflict and to promote peace and stability — that Australia is stepping up to make that bet."