Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Albanese, are playing down an apparent bungle that appeared to reveal US President Donald Trump doesn’t know anything about the AUKUS defence pact.

“What does that mean?” Trump said on Thursday (US time) when he was asked about the trilateral defence deal ahead of a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House.

Under the deal, Australia will spend up to $368 billion to obtain nuclear submarines through a partnership with the US and Britain.

After being prompted about what AUKUS was, Trump said the submarine deal would be discussed and that “we’ve had a very good relationship with Australia”.

Later on Friday, Albanese said there were a “lot of acronyms” in politics, and pointed out that Trump also spoke positively about the US’s “really important and positive relationship” with Australia.

“There’s a lot of acronyms in this business and we all get thrown at them from time to time,” he said.

“Donald Trump … [also] wanted to speak about the really important and positive relationship with Australia.

“That is consistent with the discussions that I’ve had with President Trump that included, of course, talking about AUKUS, which we spoke about during our discussions.”

Earlier, Employment Minister Murray Watt dismissed concerns that Trump wasn’t immediately across AUKUS.

“I wouldn’t make too much about a President with a very full plate not remembering one acronym. I think all of us go through that sort of thing at different times,” he told ABC Radio.

“You’ll see there that he was able to say very quickly about the strength of the relationship with Australia and the fact that AUKUS will be something he’ll be discussing with the British Prime Minister.”

Australia paid the US almost $800 million in February as part of the first payment of the AUKUS deal.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the Australian alliance with the US was still strong.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the President strongly supports the alliance between our three countries and strongly supports AUKUS,” he told Nine’s Today program.

“He stated that previously and the submarine deal … will underpin the national security of our country for the next century.”

-with AAP