President Joe Biden admits his administration was “clumsy” in its handling of a deal that ended a defense contract between Australia and France. A trilateral agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia—called AUKUS—includes plans for the U.S. to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian military. It replaced a $66 billion deal for submarines struck by Australia and France in 2016. “I was under the impression that France had been informed long before that the deal was not going through,” Biden said Oct. 29 during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in the French Embassy to the Holy See. “I honest to God did not know that you had not been. “I think what happened—to use an English phrase—what we did was clumsy,” Biden said. “It was not done with a lot of grace. I was under the impression that certain things had happened that had …