US President Donald Trump has lashed Australia and NATO in a scathing attack on allies, telling Sky News he was \u201cvery surprised\u201d Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not send troops to the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The President did not mince his words on Friday (local time), criticising countries for failing to support the US in its fight against Iran.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump told Sky News Washington correspondent Jonathan Kearsley he was \u201csurprised\u201d Australia had declined to assist in the war with Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr President, you took issue with Australia, Japan and South Korea this week,\u201d Kearsley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery surprised,\u201d Mr Trump replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat would you like them to do?\u201d Kearsley asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet involved \u2026 I was a little bit surprised they said no \u2026 we always say yes to them,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did Australia say no to, what did Australia say no to Mr President?\u201d Kearsley asked.<\/p>\n
Overnight, Mr Trump labelled NATO allies \u201ccowards\u201d for refusing to send troops to secure the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout the USA, NATO is a paper tiger!\u201d the US leader declared on Truth Social.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t want to join the fight to stop a nuclear-powered Iran. Now that fight is militarily won, with very little danger for them. They complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay, but don\u2019t want to help open the Strait of Hormuz \u2014 a simple military manoeuvre that is the single reason for the high oil prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo easy for them to do, with so little risk. Cowards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kearsley said Mr Trump continues to \u201cpoint the finger\u201d at NATO.<\/p>\n
The war continues to rage on with the US\u2013Israel conflict with Iran closing in on three weeks.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Mr Trump declared that the US \u201chas won\u201d against Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have knocked out their navy, their air force, we\u2019ve knocked out their anti-aircraft, we\u2019ve knocked out everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are roaming free. From a military standpoint, all they’re doing is clogging up the Strait.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut from a military standpoint, they’re finished.\u201d<\/p>\n
Energy prices remain a global concern, with the International Energy Agency warning the conflict is the \u201cgreatest threat to global energy supply in the history of the world\u201d.<\/p>\n
The US is set to deploy 2,500 marines to the Middle East in a bid to take control of the conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump has lashed Australia and NATO in a scathing attack on allies, telling Sky News…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8932,64,63,5575,12241,38675,44,3281,2489],"class_list":["post-553971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-albanese","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-navy","tag-news","tag-trump","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}