Whatever criticisms and complaints about it, the Prime Minister had a clear strategy in dealing with Donald Trump: keep it out of the public gaze. Even when savaged for refusing to criticise Trump’s ban on Muslims entering the United States — a ban that even senior Republicans said would increase the risk of terrorism — Turnbull was guided by a plan to avoid unnecessarily offending the new administration in Washington — led, after all by fellow businessman-turned-politician. The Brits, the Canadians, the French, the Germans, even the Kiwis might all attack the ban, but it wasn’t Turnbull’s job to engage in public commentary on other countries. He would deal — and deal was the relevant word — with Trump privately.
Of course, as Crikey pointed out, Turnbull has been only too happy to comment on other countries, including the United States, before, but Turnbull was sticking to his plan, and wearing grief and accusations of spinelessness for it. All for the goal of ensuring a solid working relationship with Trump — and, most of all, to secure the vital political deal originally made with the Obama administration to send approximately 1200 refugees from our nightmarish offshore detention camps (“prisons”, Trump prefers to call them, in a perhaps unique example of truth-telling) to the United States.
Until yesterday, the strategy appeared to have worked. The Americans had agreed that the deal would be honoured, Turnbull assured us. To pat itself on the back, the government quietly dropped to The Australian that it was the result of a “special favour” to Australia. And Australian dual nationals would not be affected by the Muslim ban — the result, Turnbull announced in a press release on Wednesday, of the government “securing” an exemption. Here was evidence, it seemed, that the softly, softly approach to Trump would work.
Only problem was, the government had “secured” nothing for Australians: the Americans had — depending on which source you read in an effort to nail down exactly what the Muslim ban consisted of — simply given all Five Eyes countries the same carve-out, or exempted all dual nationals.
And, yesterday, the refugee deal went to hell in the most remarkable eruption in US-Australian relations in a generation. Turnbull’s studied approach might have worked with any normal leader, but Trump is no normal leader — if he is indeed the actual leader in the White House. The details of the Turnbull-Trump discussions were leaked — including details that appeared to have no other purpose than to humiliate Turnbull, such as Trump hanging up on him and telling him the call was his worst of the day. And then Trump backed away entirely from the deal via that tweet.
Twenty-four hours later, we’re still not clear if the deal is still on — overnight, Trump himself said “we’ll see what happens” in off-the-cuff comments attacking the deal, while his spokesman said that Trump would “continue to review the deal”, then suggesting it would proceed with extreme vetting — a mixture of Trump’s own position and the position adopted by the State Department and the spokesman himself earlier this week.
The government will be desperately hoping this is all just Trump trying to give himself some political distance from the deal so he can blame it all on Obama, even if it has meant a spectacular blow-up in relations with one of its most loyal vassal states and embarrassment for a fellow conservative leader. A worse outcome would be the Americans refusing to help the government get out of the problem it finds itself in of running permanent offshore detention facilities where the detainees are abused, raped and given inadequate health care, all overseen by a department that has been repeatedly found to be incompetent at the most basic bureaucratic processes.
Turnbull will doubtless continue his softly, softly approach, but he does so knowing full well it won’t be rewarded. He’ll have to continue to endure the criticism of spinelessness about Trump, while struggling to point to any benefits from it. Meantime, other leaders have decided that publicly standing up to Trump at least has the merit of speaking to the President in a language he understands, because he plainly doesn’t understand — or has no interest in — the language of diplomacy.
Just as Keating said Turds has abominable judgement
While he may have over-egged the pudding with the ‘special favour’ line in the Oz, I can’t imagine how Mr Harbour-side-Mansion could have handled this any better. The US administration should be the focus here – rampant hubris and some spectacular leaking.
But what is of most concern is that 1250 living breathing actual people are being treated as some sort of plaything in an international big-swinging-dick competition.
If ever there was a need for an example of a narcissist, look no further than Trump. We will probably not know the full conversation but maybe Trump didn’t like where the conversation was heading and being the person he is, he reacted as you would expect. You are right diplomacy doesn’t come into it.
It isn’t in Australian interests for this deal to be honoured now. If it is then the President of the USA is a certainty to use it to obtain our support on things we might not normally agree. We don’t need to suck up to this man. Better we deal with the issue ourselves. Bring the refugees here evev if we have to make it clear it’s a one off.
Quite right, David. We should be grown up enough to clean up our own mess instead of asking the Americans to do it for us. If we claim to be a sovereign nation then we should behave as one. Take responsibility, stop hiding everything on-water, stop bleeding billions into torturing some poor souls escaping wars and worse, bring them here and set them up to look after themselves (if they are still capable). At the moment there is little to be proud of in the actions of the Australian government. We need to change that.
Hear, hear Nigel. Though I can’t see the LibLabs giving up their favourite opiate for the masses any more than I can see them ignoring the next US dog-whistle to bomb somebody into the desperation of becoming a refugee.
I completely agree – there will a pseudo mafioso “..in return, I may ask you to do something…” and it will be to our utter debasement.
Bernard has not actually countenanced the worst scenario here. Steve Bannon said in a 2015 radio broadcast ‘we are going to war in the South China Sea… No doubt about it.’ Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been ultra-hawkish on China as has Trump. The Obama administration spent 8 years surrounding China with military bases and provoking China with ridiculous ‘exercises’. How much longer are we going to comfort ourselves with the notion that this is all bluster?
The most probable scenario is that the refugee deal will be honoured in some form and the U.S. will use it to further leverage us into compliance with their insane Pacific military project – war with China. For further reading:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/02/blundering-into-a-war-with-china/