The Pentagon goes back claiming that Richard Marles has not met Pete Hegseth

The Trump administration has backed down on Australian Defense Minister’s advice, Richard Marsnot meeting his American counterpart, Pete Hegseth, which exacerbated his confusion about the White House visit this week.

U.S. officials initially denied that Mars had a formal meeting with Heggs during his last trip to Washington, raising doubts about the federal government’s claims about the visit.

But, as Albany’s government minister faced problems on Thursday morning, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell told The Guardian Australia that the couple did meet.

“Secretary Heggs welcomes the opportunity to meet Vice Premier Mars in person,” Parnell said.

“They’re coordinating in advance at the White House on Tuesday.”

Mars announced on Sunday that he would visit Washington and “meet the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsethand other senior government officials. The trip was rushing to plan, which meant Mars would miss the beginning of the Canberra parliamentary sitting period.

He said Wednesday that he was pleased to meet with senior officials including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But in a carefully worded statement, Mars said: “It’s great to see Secretary Heggs again.”

Marles shared photos with Hegseth, Vance and Rubio on social media, saying he took the opportunity to “reaffirm Australia’s commitment to the American League” and named the signature Hegseth.

The planned press conference was not underway before he left Washington and returned to Canberra.

But on Thursday, the Pentagon described a meeting that treated the photos as “a chance encounter.”

“We can confirm that there are no meetings,” a U.S. defense official said in a statement in nine news releases Thursday morning.

The Australian side said the talks held by Mars and Hergs were described as one-on-one opportunities, which are said to cover relations between Australia and the United States, including Australia’s nuclear submarine agreement.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers made any differences in his statements between Washington and Canberra.

“The Australian Deputy Prime Minister met with the US Vice President and Secretary Rubio played many roles. A crucial role,” he said.

“I have no Richard report on the discussion he had with the Secretary of Defense, but anyway, when we have a lot of questions in our role, any objective measure goes to the United States to meet people in that administration and I’m frankly and frankly seeing the trip back.”

The two have previously met off-the-scenes in the United States and the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore in May Heggs says Australia Defense spending should be significantly increased to improve regional security and address China’s efforts to increase influence throughout the Indo-Pacific region.

The Pentagon’s scrutiny of Aukus has caused anxiety among the federal government and the defense community. This comment was conducted by skeptics of the deal Elbridge Colby, Deputy Secretary of Defenseexpected to be completed by the end of the year.

According to the deal, Australia has sent $1.6 billion to the United States.

Another complexity of federal labor is the Prime Minister’s efforts to ensure his first face-to-face meeting with the U.S. President Donald Trump. The talks could be held next month, when Albanese travelled to New York to attend the UN General Assembly.

A planned meeting at Canada’s G7 summit was cancelled as Trump returned to the White House early.

Shadow Treasury Secretary James Paterson said Marles is the right to meet with senior officials including White House Vice President Stephen Miller.

“This was abandoned with Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“What I worry even more is that we have been elected for President Trump for more than 290 days now and the Prime Minister still hasn’t met him.

“I think this is a serious problem with our most important bilateral security relationship.”

Albanese and Trump can cross the path in a series of diplomatic engagements planned before Christmas, including four Quad leaders talks, and summits at the G20 and APEC.