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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.

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.”

He 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”.

On Friday, in response to the new comment, the defence minister and deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said Australia had not rejected any requests from the White House but he refused to comment directly on the president’s statements.

“We are looking at the requesting we get from countries around the world, including the United States, and obviously we answer them in the context of our national interest,” Marles told ABC TV.

“The last thing I’m going to do is give a running commentary on what the president has said. All we can do is respond to this situation, respond to the requests that are made of us, but doing so with a focus on what is our national interest. That is what we are doing.”

The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, told ABC radio the government was “not going to give a running commentary on the various statements of president Trump. What we’re going to do is focus on what’s in Australia’s national interest.

“It’s been very widely reported that we’ve delivered the support that we’ve been asked for, which is a defensive support for the UAE.

“That’s the request that we’ve received. That’s the request that we have agreed to. And I’m not aware of any further request having been made of Australia.”