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On Sunday, 29 January 2017 (Saturday 28 in America) U.S. President Donald Trump made a scheduled telephone call to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.
Instead, President Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.
At one point, Trump informed Turnbull that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day — including Russian President Vladimir Putin — and that “this was the worst call by far.”
Trump’s behavior suggests that he is capable of subjecting world leaders, including close allies, to a version of the vitriol he frequently employs against political adversaries and news organizations in speeches and on Twitter.
President Trump speaks on the phone with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in the Oval Office on Jan. 28, 2017. (Pete Marovich/Pool photo via European Pressphoto Agency)
“This is the worst deal ever,” Trump fumed as Turnbull attempted to confirm that the United States would honor its pledge to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center.
Trump, who one day earlier had signed an executive order temporarily barring the admission of refugees, complained that he was “going to get killed” politically and accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers.”
Trump returned to the topic late Wednesday night, writing in a message on Twitter: “Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!”
U.S. officials said that Trump has behaved similarly in conversations with leaders of other countries, including Mexico. But his treatment of Turnbull was particularly striking because of the tight bond between the United States and Australia — countries that share intelligence, support one another diplomatically and have fought together in wars including in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The characterizations
provide insight into Trump’s temperament and approach to the diplomatic
requirements of his job as the nation’s chief executive, a role in which he
continues to employ both the uncompromising negotiating tactics he honed as a
real estate developer and the bombastic style he exhibited as a reality
television personality.
The depictions of
Trump’s calls are also at odds with sanitized White House accounts. The
official readout of his conversation with Turnbull, for example, said that the
two had “emphasized the enduring strength and closeness of the U.S.-Australia
relationship that is critical for peace, stability, and prosperity in the
Asia-Pacific region and globally.”
A White House spokesman
declined to comment. A senior administration official acknowledged that the conversation
with Turnbull had been hostile and charged, but emphasized that most of Trump’s
calls with foreign leaders — including the heads of Japan, Germany, France and
Russia — have been productive and pleasant......
But U.S. officials said
that Trump continued to fume about the arrangement even after signing the order
in a ceremony at the Pentagon.
“I don’t want these
people,” Trump said. He repeatedly misstated the number of refugees called for
in the agreement as 2,000 rather than 1,250, and told Turnbull that it was “my
intention” to honor the agreement, a phrase designed to leave the U.S.
president wiggle room to back out of the deal in the future, according to a
senior U.S. official.
Before Trump tweeted
about the agreement Wednesday night, the U.S. Embassy in Canberra had assured
Australian reporters that the new administration intended to take the refugees.
“President Trump’s
decision to honour the refugee agreement has not changed,” an embassy spokesman
had told the reporters, according to an official in the Sydney consulate. “This
was just reconfirmed to the State Department from the White House and on to this
embassy at 1315 Canberra time.”
The time the embassy
said it was informed the deal was going ahead was 9:15 p.m. in Washington, one
hour and 40 minutes before Trump suggested in a tweet that it might not go
ahead.
During the phone
conversation Saturday, Turnbull told Trump that to honor the agreement, the
United States would not have to accept all of the refugees but only to allow
each through the normal vetting procedures. At that, Trump vowed to subject
each refugee to “extreme vetting,” the senior U.S. official said.
Trump was also skeptical
because he did not see a specific advantage the United States would gain by
honoring the deal, officials said.
Trump’s position appears
to reflect the transactional view he takes of relationships, even when it comes
to diplomatic ties with long-standing allies. Australian troops have fought
alongside U.S. forces for decades, and the country maintains close cooperation
with Washington on trade and economic issues.
Australia is seen as
such a trusted ally that it is one of only four countries that the United
States includes in the “Five Eyes” arrangement for cooperation on espionage
matters. Members share extensively what their intelligence services gather and
generally refrain from spying on one another.
There also is a
significant amount of tourism between the two countries.....
At one point, Turnbull
suggested that the two leaders move on from their impasse over refugees to
discuss the conflict in Syria and other pressing foreign issues. But Trump
demurred and ended the call, making it far shorter than his conversations with
Shinzo Abe of Japan, Angela Merkel of Germany, François Hollande of France or
Putin.
“These conversations are
conducted candidly, frankly, privately,” Turnbull said at a news conference
Thursday in Australia. “If you see reports of them, I’m not going to add to
them.”
After news of the content of Trump's telephone call became public, the ruling Republican Party went into damage control:
Feb 02 2017
Washington, D.C. –
U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, released the following statement on his call this morning with
Australia’s Ambassador to the United States Joe Hockey:
“On the Fourth of July
1918, American and Australian soldiers fought side-by-side at the Battle of
Hamel. In the century that followed, our two nations struggled and sacrificed
together in World War I and World War II, Korea and Vietnam, Afghanistan and
Iraq. Those of us who took part in the conflict remember well the service of
more than 50,000 Australians in the Vietnam War, including more than 500 that
gave their lives.
“Today, Australia is
hosting increased deployments of U.S. aircraft, more regular port visits by
U.S. warships, and critical training for U.S. marines at Robertson Barracks in
Darwin. This deepening cooperation is a reminder that from maintaining security
and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region to combatting radical Islamist
terrorism, the U.S-Australia relationship is more important than ever.
“In short, Australia is
one of America’s oldest friends and staunchest allies. We are united by ties of
family and friendship, mutual interests and common values, and shared sacrifice
in wartime.
“In that spirit, I
called Australia’s Ambassador to the United States this morning to express my
unwavering support for the U.S.-Australia alliance. I asked Ambassador Hockey
to convey to the people of Australia that their American brothers and sisters
value our historic alliance, honor the sacrifice of the Australians who have
served and are serving by our side, and remain committed to the safer, freer,
and better world that Australia does far more than its fair share to protect
and promote.”
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Meanwhile in
Australia ABC
News was reporting:
Mr Trump's declaration
via Twitter that the proposed Australian refugee settlement arrangement struck
with former president Barack Obama was a "dumb deal" has startled long-term
observers of the ANZUS alliance.
"I've been watching
the alliance relationship for more than 30 years now and I think this is as
difficult a period as we've seen since the so-called MX missile crisis of the
early 1980s," said Peter Jennings, the director of the Australian Strategic
Policy Institute.
"I think it's
sensible for us to be working through all manner of contingencies, which
includes a temporary freezing of the alliance, a sort of lull in alliance
cooperation," Mr Jennings warned.
"Ordinarily you'd
say that was very unexpected, but I just think we've got to be prepared for any
contingency under the new presidency".
And of course Twitter lit up over the subject:
New York: The
revelation that Donald Trump berated Malcolm Turnbull, the leader of one
of America's closest allies, during a recent official phone call has been
met with shock, disbelief and some embarrassed humour in the United
States, fuelling concerns about the US president badly damaging important
international relationships.
The Washington Post scoop
revealing the tense conversation broke late in the day in the US and
went on to dominate late night news television shows and social media, with
many expressing disbelief that of all the countries the US could have offended
in the first weeks of a new administration, it would be America's genial
allies across the Pacific.
"Dear Australia:
The majority of Americans who don't support Trump want to say we are sorry. We will
make it up to you in four years or less," Ted Lieu, a Democratic
congressman from California who sits on the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, wrote on Twitter after the story broke.
"I made a Top 100
Possible Trump Administration Foreign Crises list & I gotta admit
'Rupturing US-Australia Relations' was NOT on there," senator Chris
Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who sits on the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations, also wrote.
Lawrence O'Donnell,
the left-wing commentator and host of MSNBC's The Last Word, lambasted
the president for insulting Turnbull, "while having no idea that
Australia has stood by us like no other ally, marched into battle with us
where no other ally would go, including Vietnam, something Donald Trump would
have known if he had served in Vietnam and heard those men beside him with
those Australian accents, men who saved the lives of American troops".
Democratic senator Jeff
Merkley said much of the president's behaviour had been "extremely
disturbing" and that "many of us are worried we are going to stumble
into war".
David Gergen, a former
presidential adviser to Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, who is now an analyst
for CNN, accused Trump of bullying a friend…..
Kevin Madden, a former
adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said people had
long expected that Trump, a mogul and reality television star
known for his combative, impudent manner, would eventually conform to some
level of political protocol, but that a pivot of that nature was never going to
come.
"He's just not
going to change but that's what's problematic," he said on the same
CNN panel…..
Trump felt compelled to explain himself publicly at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday 2 February 2017 as reported
by The
Independent UK the next day:
Donald Trump has warned
that he plans to be “tough” and “straighten things out” after reports emerged
that he had “yelled” at the Australian Prime Minister about their refugee
resettlement deal and had hung up mid-conversation.
At a prayer breakfast,
the President said: “That’s what I do, I fix things. We’re going to straighten
it out. Believe me.
“When you hear about the
tough phone calls I’m having, don’t worry about it. Just don’t worry about it.
They’re tough. We have to be tough. It’s time we’re going to be a little tough,
folks. We’re taken advantage of by every nation in the world virtually. It’s
not going to happen any more. It’s not going to happen any more.”
The call with Malcolm
Turnbull on Saturday should have lasted an hour, but after 25 minutes Mr Trump
wanted off the call.
Australia Sky News
sources reported that the President “yelled” at Mr Turnbull as he sat in the
Oval Office, flanked by Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon, Press Secretary Sean
Spicer and Defence Secretary Michael Flynn. It was the last call of the day
after several other scheduled phone calls with several foreign leaders.
AS the White House confirmed a “horrible deal” between Australia and the US on refugees would remain, US President Donald Trump cast more skepticism.
He said he questioned the purpose of the agreement, and suggested the number of refugees could increase to 2,000, after the Trump administration agreed to honour an Obama-era plan to resettle 1,250 asylum seekers in the US.
“For whatever reason President Obama said that they were going to take probably well over a thousand illegal immigrants who were in prisons and they were going to bring them and take them into this country,” Trump said.
“And I just said why?”
“Why are we doing this?”
“We have to be treated fairly also, we have to be treated fairly.”
“So we’ll see what happens. When the previous administration does something, you have to respect that, but you can also say, why are we doing this?” he said.
News footage of Donald Trump has him stating that the United States is being taken advantage of by Australia.
He has forgotten - if he ever knew in the first place - just how many U.S. strategic defence/intelligence installations are sited on Australian soil, sometimes at a genuinely peppercorn rent. One, Pine Gap, collects a wide range of signals intelligence as well as providing early warning of ballistic missile launches and allegedly controls certain American spy satellites as they fly over China, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East.
On the morning of Thursday 2 January, Australia’s Ambassador to the United States met with two of Trump’s senior staff, Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon, at which time they conveyed the president's deep admiration for the Australian people - presumaby because the story of Trump’s telephone tantrum refused to die a quick death and they were obviously desperate to see it interred six feet under.
Despite this clumsy olive branch 9 News carried footage from that same day which clearly demonstrated how untrustworthy this new White House is:
Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway has blamed Australia for leaking a transcript of the US president berating Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull despite reports it came from the White House.
Conway who was speaking on Fox & Friends on Thursday took the opportunity to address the heated phone call that has turned many Americans against Trump for verbally attacking the leader of one the USA’s closest allies.
However, despite the Washington Post reporting the leak came from US officials briefed on the exchange, Conway refuted claims the leak came from the US.
"This is the practice for us… we’re the ones not leaking. You saw it with the earlier reports, you see it here. You’re a little bit hamstrung when you’re the ones upholding the law or, more frankly, upholding a gentlemen’s agreement to not release," Conway said.
When asked who leaked the transcript the Trump advisor insinuated it must have been Australia.
"Well, you can make your own conclusions," she said.
More reliable rumour has it that the leaked details of the Trump-Turnbull conversation came from within Trump's close circle of advisers, in an attempt to either lay the groundwork for a reluctant agreement to the Obama-Turnbull Nauru & Manus asylum seeker arrangement or to poison this deal the eyes of the American public and so give Trump an excuse to eventually withdraw.
Either way Donald Trump has misread the relationship with Australia and it may come back to bite him.
When they decide enough is enough, Australians can become decidedly bloody-minded and President Trump needs to keep that in mind.
Right now a good many Australians have narrowed eyes and grim mouths as they turn their gaze towards this man.
