Donald Trump has taken another swipe at Australia, alongside Nato, the UK and most of the rest of the world, for not getting more involved in the US-Israel war against Iran.
But Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, again said he had not received any direct requests for help from Trump, and noted the government had not been given any advance notice of the US-Israel military strikes on Iran.
At a press conference on Thursday at the White House, the US president was asked to reflect on phone calls with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer. He began by describing Starmer as a “lovely man”.
However, he continued, “[Starmer] did something that was shocking: he didn’t want to help us. And maybe in particular that country, you know, the longest bond, the longest ally.
“Australia, too, Australia was not great. I was a little surprised by Australia.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email“I wouldn’t say anybody was great, other than the five countries in the Middle East. We never really had very much support.”
The Albanese government deployed an E7 Wedgetail surveillance aircraft and about 85 defence personnel to the United Arab Emirates, in what has been described as a defensive effort to help assist Australians in the region. Australia also operates military assets from a base in the UAE, and supplied missiles to the country’s government. The plane is feeding information into the Combined Air Operations Centre in Qatar, the facility that helps the US coordinate Middle Eastern operations.
Minister for defence, Richard Marles, this week did not rule out extending the deployment of the Wedgetail, which is now two weeks into what was described as an “initial four weeks”.
Trump described the Middle East conflict as “little league” and said: “If there’s ever a big [conflict], which I hope there’s not, but if there’s ever a big one, I don’t think they’re going to be there.
“And that’s not fair, and we have to remember that as a country, because we spend trillions of dollars protecting Europe.”
It followed an exchange where Trump had taken aim at Nato countries for their lack of involvement in the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
He said: “Actually made a statement, a couple of them, that ‘we want to get involved when the war is over’. No, it’s supposed to get involved with the war’s beginning, or even before it begins.
“We had the UK say – this is three weeks ago – ‘we’ll send our aircraft carriers’, which aren’t the best aircraft carriers, by the way. They’re toys compared to what we have. But ‘we’ll send our aircraft carrier when the war is over’. I said: ‘Oh that’s wonderful, thank you very much. Don’t bother. We don’t need it.’
“Now they all want to help. When they’re annihilated, the other side is annihilated, they said ‘we’d love to send ships’.”
Trump made a similar comment about Australia a week beforehand, when he was asked by an Australian journalist what he wanted from Australia in the Iran conflict. He responded: “Well, they should get involved, and I was a little bit surprised they said no, because we always say yes to them.”
‘Constructive’ relationship
On Friday, Albanese said he had a “constructive” relationship with Trump, but downplayed the president’s claims.
“I said I wasn’t going to comment on all of his commentary on a day-to-day basis, but I again reiterate that there is no request being made to Australia that has not been agreed to,” Albanese said.
“President Trump, it’s up to him to explain his comments, but of course, I make the point as well that Australia wasn’t consulted before this action was undertaken, and I respect that that’s a matter for the United States.”
Asked if Australia still supported the US assault on Iran, after a failure to achieve Trump’s stated goals of regime change or stopping the country’s nuclear program, Albanese said he wanted de-escalation but “it’s up to President Trump”.
“We do want to see an end to the conflict,” he said.
“As I’ve said, we have an abhorrence of the Iranian regime.”
Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles said Australian assets had been deployed to the UAE after requests from America, but declined to say whether more Australian military assets could be sent to the Middle East or the strait of Hormuz.
“The one request we’ve had from the United States is to provide support for Gulf States, which is in fact what we are doing, and that’s where we see our national interest. We do that because of the relationship we have with the Gulf States but also because in the UAE specifically it is home to one of the largest expat populations that Australia has, and so it’s a really important contribution,” he told the ABC.
Asked about operations to secure or protect oil ships in the strait of Hormuz, Marles said it was “really important” but declined to say whether or how Australia would participate.
Marles told Channel Nine that the government would consider any requests, but “we don’t have a request from the United States in respect of the strait of Hormuz right now.”
Opposition leader Angus Taylor said any decision about deploying Australian military to the Middle East “needs to be in our national interest, in line with our sovereignty”.
“But there is a big question about this, which is, what requests have the government received from the United States for support in the Middle East? Beyond what we already know, what requests have been received?” he said on Friday.
“What [Trump’s] comments suggest is there have been requests received. We’d like to know what they are.”
