{"id":381517,"date":"2025-08-29T02:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T02:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/381517\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T02:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T02:36:11","slug":"the-marles-hegseth-chaos-prompted-jokes-but-uncertainty-over-australias-us-relationship-is-no-laughing-matter-richard-marles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/381517\/","title":{"rendered":"The Marles-Hegseth chaos prompted jokes. But uncertainty over Australia\u2019s US relationship is no laughing matter | Richard Marles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican congressman Jason Smith was a guest of honour at Parliament House on Thursday, watching question time from the floor of the chamber and holding talks with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The chair of the US congress\u2019 powerful ways and means committee has spent recent days helping ministers decode Donald Trump and grapple with uncertain times in the Australia-US alliance.<\/p>\n

But the Missourian\u2019s presence might have been fortuitous timing for Labor, as the government sought to head off an awkward diplomatic snafu<\/a> involving the defence minister, Richard Marles.<\/p>\n

Announcing an apparently last-minute visit to Washington DC on Sunday, Marles said he planned to meet his US counterpart, the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth<\/a>, in Washington.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s plenty for the two countries to discuss: the Aukus nuclear submarine agreement<\/a>, Australia\u2019s push for tariff exemptions and Hegseth\u2019s demands Australia dramatically increase defence spending.<\/p>\n

Only it wasn\u2019t entirely clear why the meeting was so urgent, or if Hegseth had agreed to a meeting at all. A vague social media post by Marles suggested he\u2019d spent more time with the vice-president, JD Vance, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n

Things got worse for Labor on Thursday morning, when an unnamed Pentagon spokesperson said no formal meeting with Hegseth had taken place, describing Hegseth\u2019s interaction with Marles as \u201ca happenstance encounter\u201d.<\/p>\n

Marles insisted he had held substantive discussions with Hegseth, including on the Pentagon\u2019s review of Aukus<\/a>, a point of major anxiety that would not be resolved until at least the end of the year.<\/p>\n

As Labor raced to save face, the Pentagon\u2019s chief spokesperson confirmed the pair had in fact met, in talks described as having been \u201ccoordinated in advance\u201d. The Trump administration was living up to its reputation for chaos, just weeks before the foreign and defence ministers were expected to meet their US counterparts anyway.<\/p>\n

Amid growing embarrassment for the deputy prime minister \u2013 the subject of a recent magazine profile titled \u2018Nobody likes Richard Marles\u2019 \u2013 Smith\u2019s presence in Canberra can\u2019t have been completely coincidental to events. There was speculation he might have intervened, pointing out the US was humiliating a senior figure from one of its closest allies, either inadvertently or deliberately.<\/p>\n

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The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, made hay in question time. In her speech to welcome Smith, she noted wryly that \u201cface-to-face meetings are important\u201d.<\/p>\n

For his part, Marles talked a lot and made things less clear. Liberal Angus Taylor asked if he\u2019d gone halfway around the world for a real meeting or just a photo opportunity.<\/p>\n

Marles declared the Liberal party was \u201ca joke\u201d before suggesting the opposition might believe the photos with Hegseth <\/strong>were AI fakes. The energy minister, Chris Bowen, jokingly suggested Marles might have faked the moon landing as well.<\/p>\n

Albanese left question time frustrated at the opposition\u2019s line of inquiry this week, including on the Marles trip and other matters he saw as trivial.<\/p>\n

But the problem might be a bit more serious for Labor.<\/p>\n

The chaos over the Hegseth meeting is nothing compared to Albanese\u2019s wait for his first meeting with Trump. The stakes could hardly be higher, least of all because Australia has already sent $1.6bn to the US for the nuclear subs no one is sure will ever actually be received.<\/p>\n

Worse, Australia\u2019s closest security and foreign policy partner appears not to care much about us at all.<\/p>\n

Albanese heads to New York next month<\/a>. He will be hoping talks with congressman Smith can pave the way for an altogether more certain itinerary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican congressman Jason Smith was a guest of honour at Parliament House on Thursday, watching question time from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-381517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115109729682714451","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}