Australia snubs Donald Trump’s global plea for warships to protect Strait of Hormuz
Donald Trump is ramping up pressure on allies to help protect the crucial shipping lane.
The Australian Defence Force will not deploy a warship to the Strait of Hormuz despite Donald Trump ramping up pressure on allies to help protect the crucial shipping lane, as the Albanese Government insists it’s yet to receive any specific request for support from Washington.
More than a fortnight after Israel and the United States launched attacks against Iran, President Trump is warning the NATO military alliance faces a “very bad” future if member nations fail to step up.
On Monday, Transport Minister Catherine King confirmed the government would not deploy a warship to the conflict zone after last week announcing a Royal Australian Air Force E-7A surveillance plane was being sent to help defend the United Arab Emirates.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“We’ve been very clear about what our contribution is in relation to requests, and so far, that is to the UAE — obviously providing aircraft to assist with defence, particularly given the number of Australians that are in that area in particular,” Ms King said.
“But we won’t be sending a ship to the Strait of Hormuz. We know how incredibly important that is. That’s not something that we’ve been asked, or we’re contributing,” she told the ABC.
Military sources say Australia’s maritime support options are limited, given the overall size of the Navy and that two of its three modern and heavily armed Air Warfare Destroyers are currently out of the water for maintenance and upgrades.
The Defence Department has not responded to questions about the availability of naval assets, but The Nightly understands one AWD is currently being upgraded at South Australia’s Osborne shipyard, while another is in deep maintenance in Sydney.
Asked whether the Australian Navy would be able to currently deploy a suitably equipped warship to the Strait of Hormuz, Assistant Defence Minister Peter Khalil told Sky News “these operational matters are determined by the National Security Committee”.
“I’m not going to get into hypotheticals about that. As I said, we have responded to a request by the UAE to help support them in defending their civilian population and their civilian sites from the barrage of missile attacks.”
“I think that is an appropriate deployment. It’s an important one. Protecting civilians, protecting civilian infrastructure and sites, is something that we’re doing with our E-7 Wedgetail as well as the AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles)”.
Over the weekend an RAAF C-17 transport aircraft was photographed delivering supplies to British support ship RFA Lyme Bay ahead of its departure from Gibraltar, as it prepares for a possible deployment to the Middle East to evacuate civilians.
In 2023 Australia declined a formal request from the Biden administration to send a warship to the Red Sea under a US-led multinational coalition, with the Albanese government again privately signalling there are greater priorities closer to home.
Shadow defence minister James Paterson said Australia should only weigh any request from the US against the national interest and “the availability of appropriate naval vessels for this conflict”.
Senator Paterson noted that three years ago, there were questions over whether Australia had appropriately armed naval ships to send to the Middle East and hoped “significant improvements have been made to those vessels so that they would be able to be deployed”.
President Trump warned the NATO alliance of a “very bad future” if member nations refused to provide military support to help open the Strait of Hormuz, in an interview with the Financial Review on Sunday.
“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there. If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.”
“We didn’t have to help them with Ukraine. Ukraine is thousands of miles away from us … But we helped them. Now we’ll see if they help us. Because I’ve long said that we’ll be there for them, but they won’t be there for us. And I’m not sure that they’d be there.”
