unloaded on Australia for the third time<\/a> at the White House on Friday, suggesting it had failed to step up along with other NATO countries.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m not happy with Australia because they were not there when we asked them to be there,\u201d Mr Trump told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia is another one. They were not there having to do with (the Strait of) Hormuz. So I\u2019m not happy, I\u2019m not happy with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, the Prime Minister pointedly noted that the President has also publicly rebuked Australia by suggesting the United States didn\u2019t need our help.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been no new requests at all, and indeed, President Trump has himself said that he has got this and he has made that position clear,\u201d Mr Albanese said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been no change.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a reference to Mr Trump\u2019s social media spray in mid March when he posted the following on his Truth Social platform: \u201cBecause of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer \u2018need,\u2019 or desire, the NATO Countries\u2019 assistance \u2014 WE NEVER DID!.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cLikewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea. In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!\u201d <\/p>\n
The US did ask for help protecting Gulf States including the United Arab Emirates and Australia has obliged. <\/p>\n
But that doesn\u2019t involve joining the US mission in Iran.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has also made Australia\u2019s reluctance clear in her public comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019ve made clear is that right from the start, we would not be providing boots on the ground,\u201d Senator Wong said.<\/p>\n
Why this conflict is different from Iraq and Afghanistan<\/p>\n
Professor Rory Medcalf, the Head of the National Security College at ANU, has described the situation as \u201ca mess\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, my working guess is that the US President wants basically a blank cheque to say, \u2018we will put ships into a Coalition led by the US to clear the Strait of Hormuz\u2019, and we\u2019ll worry about the details later,\u201d Professor Medcalf said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was trying to build an international coalition behind the US to clear the Strait. When there was no flood of volunteers for that, then he changed his tune to, \u2018Well, you do it yourselves.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of that normal programming has been out the window with this because there was obviously no forewarning or consultation about the actual attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m actually quite sympathetic to the government because I don\u2019t see what else they can do, in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s former ambassador to the US Arthur Sinodinos says that the President\u2019s \u201clashing out at allies is an expression of frustration that the war is taking longer than he expected\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything he says about allies should be just seen as something said at a moment in time, support for the (US) alliance in countries like Australia is pretty strong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Why Australia could join an alliance with Britain<\/p>\n
Despite Australia not wanting to join the war in Iran, there are behind-the-scenes moves to play a larger role in securing the safe passage of oil supplies.<\/p>\n
Defence Minister Richard Marles has confirmed that Australia is in talks with a Coalition of 35 nations to discuss military measures to secure the safe passage of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and could contribute assets to the plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will look to what Australia can do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m reluctant to speculate in detail about all of that, other than to say our E-7 Wedgetail is in the region right now and it\u2019s providing, or doing important work in terms of contributing to the defence of the countries of the Gulf, in particular the UAE.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Sir Keir insisted his nation did not want to be \u201cdragged\u201d into the military conflict and suggested \u201cthis is not our war\u201d, he said the most effective way he could support the cost of living in Britain was to push for de-escalation in the Middle East and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Read related topics:Anthony Albanese<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia has moved closer to joining an international coalition led by Britain and France to clear the Strait…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20813,2095,2324,297834,1724,64,63,689,297835,297833,297832,2490,9239,2057,297837,5575,1076,941,5312,88431,297830,297831,44,2041,198072,2067,3583,677,297836,49399,130869,297829,3406,297828,246493,5813,12540,29994,3586,2614,3601,12000],"class_list":{"0":"post-613431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-anthony-albanese","11":"tag-arthur-sinodinos","12":"tag-asia","13":"tag-au","14":"tag-australia","15":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","16":"tag-bianca-de-marchi","17":"tag-blank-cheque","18":"tag-defiant-response","19":"tag-donald-trump","20":"tag-eastern-asia","21":"tag-europe","22":"tag-help-protecting","23":"tag-iran","24":"tag-iraq","25":"tag-japan","26":"tag-keir-starmer","27":"tag-military-conflict","28":"tag-military-measures","29":"tag-national-security-college","30":"tag-news","31":"tag-north-america","32":"tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organization","33":"tag-northern-america","34":"tag-northern-europe","35":"tag-oceania","36":"tag-oil-supplies","37":"tag-penny-wong","38":"tag-petrol-prices","39":"tag-public-attack","40":"tag-richard-marles","41":"tag-rory-medcalf","42":"tag-safe-passage","43":"tag-south-korea","44":"tag-southern-asia","45":"tag-united-arab-emirates","46":"tag-united-kingdom","47":"tag-united-states-of-america","48":"tag-washington","49":"tag-western-asia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613431","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=613431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}