Donald Trump has listed Australia among the allies he appears to be bitterly disappointed with, for not wanting to get involved with his war against Iran.
In a social media post overnight the US president said his country “has been informed by most of our Nato ‘allies’ that they don’t want to get involved … despite the fact that almost every country strongly agreed with what we are doing”.
“I am not surprised by their action,” he said, because he always considered Nato a “one way street – we will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need”.
Because of the fact that we have had such military success [against Iran], we no longer ‘need’ or desire the Nato countries’ assistance – we never did!
Likewise, 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!
It is unclear whether he has asked for assistance from Australia. On Tuesday the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said Australia had not received any formal request for help in the strait of Hormuz.
Jim Chalmers has sought to downplay the Reserve Bank of Australia’s warning that a recession may be unavoidable after a second consecutive rate rise.
On Tuesday, the RBA increased interest rates to 4.1% amid a global energy shock that threatens to push Australian inflation towards 5%. The RBA governor Michelle Bullock said if the central bank could not bring inflation down it would have to deal with the possibility of a recession.
Speaking to the ABC’s 7.30 on Tuesday night, the federal treasurer said:
That’s not something that we’re anticipating or forecasting or expecting.
We’re running a lot of scenarios at the moment as you would expect …. in the numbers we’re running right now we’re not expecting that outcome.
Chalmers said the government would do the “best” it could with available forecasts amid global uncertainty due to the Middle East conflict.
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then Nick Visser will take the reins.
After a day of grim headlines yesterday, with economists forecasting recession for Australia, Jim Chalmers has come out fighting, telling 7.30 last night “that’s not something that we’re anticipating or forecasting or expecting”. Read more in a moment.
And Donald Trump has named Australia among the allies he appears to be disappointed don’t want to get involved in his war against Iran. On the other hand, he insisted in capital letters, “we do not need the help of anyone!”
More on that soon.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
