“Do you believe it? The Obama Administration
agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will
study this dumb deal!” With this withering tweet late Wednesday night,
President Donald Trump put a refugee deal agreed with the Obama administration
to take in 1,250 refugees in jeopardy. The message appeared to be a reaction to
a report in the Washington Post about a phone call with Australian Prime
Minister Malcolm Turnbull which went badly awry.
The agreement, Trump reportedly told Turnbull
on Saturday, “was the worst deal ever.” It would get him “killed’ politically
at a time when domestic sentiment was pushing him to secure American borders
against would-be terrorists. Australia, by urging him to honour the deal, was
seeking to export “the next Boston bombers.”
The U.S. leader cut this expected
one-hour call after 25 minutes, the Post reports.
This extraordinary chain of events has put
the country in the unusual position of being at the center of an international
diplomatic furore, and the 24-hour global news cycles. And for the most part,
it would be fair to say that Australia has not responded overly favorably.
Local television and social media exploded
overnight on what was quickly dubbed "Phonegate." Everything from
Donald Trump’s approach to phone etiquette and lack thereof did he or didn’t
he hang up? to what this diplomatic feud means for Turnbull and his meager
political capital came under scrutiny.
There was little public or political sympathy
for Turnbull, the center-right leader who was re-elected in 2016 and has been
accused of being lackluster in defending Australian principles of the
"fair go" in his dealings with the U.S. on refugees and human rights,
among other things.
Many wondered if the deal to resettle
refugees from an offshore Australian detention center had now been cancelled which
would be a humiliating snub to Turnbull's government. The Prime Minister
wouldn't comment on the Post report, saying only that he had received
assurances the deal was still on. “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.”
Turnbull's political opponents weren't
convinced. Opposition leader Bill Shorten urged the Australian leader to come
clean about what was actually said during the conversation. “Talk straight to
the Australian people, tell us what's going on," Shorten said.
"Clearly President Trump and his people are saying one thing happened in
this conversation, which is completely at odds with what Prime Minister
Turnbull has told the Australian people. They both can't be right and I think
it's in the interests of the Australian people for Mr Turnbull just to be
straight with the people and tell us what's really going on."
The apparent diplomatic snub has raised
patriotic concern over perceived disrespect to the Australian leader. On 24-hr
news channel Sky News, a panelist on political journalist David Speers’ show,
retiree Lyn Ryan, said he was angered by the "bullying and pushing around…
I find it offensive as an Australian.”
But some panelists on right-wing talk show
Paul Murray’s show, also on Sky News, had sympathy for Trump's position.
Malcolm Roberts, a senator for the anti-immigration One Nation party, applauded
the U.S. President's hard-line stance. “It shows the difference between these
two leaders," he said. "Donald Trump understands his main
responsibility as a government is to protect people’s lives, to protect
property and to protect freedom. He is standing up for his country in
scrutineering this deal.”
Possible solutions ranged from sending Mr
Turnbull on an emergency make-nice visit to Washington, to organizing a meeting
between Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and US secretary of state Rex
Tillerson, to inviting Mr Trump for a state visit to smooth things over.
Murray, the host, said Australia should have
expected this kind of treatement at some point. "T he reality is that a
lot of Americans voted for ... a more inward-looking, more insular America.
They didn’t want the world’s policeman, they didn’t want them solving the
world’s problems, they’ve got enough problems in their own backyard," he
said. " I think we are just going to have to accept that from time to time
we have to cop the raw end of the pineapple because America will look after
itself under Donald Trump.”
The last word belongs to The Boss. Bruce
Springsteen, who is currently touring Australia, opened his show in Melbourne
overnight with a nod-nod-wink-wink performance of “Don’t Hang Up.” An insider
told TIME that he began with a few words about the call: "We stand before
you, embarrassed Americans, tonight... what else can I say but s--t is f---ed
up man. The E Street Band needs some Aussie spirit."
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