Albanese says he hasn’t received direct request for help after Trump takes swipe at ‘not great’ Australia
PM downplay’s Trump’s claims after US president criticises lack of support for war against Iran
Josh Butler - 27 Mar 2026
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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.
“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.”
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