Bad day, mate
Puzzling treatment for Australia, a key U.S. ally
President Donald Trump appears to have fallen out with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in a telephone conversation Saturday.
According to news reports, the bone of contention was an agreement concluded last year under which Australia would accept refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras (held in camps in Costa Rica) in return for America’s accepting 1,250 refugees from Iran, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. Australia’s unwanted refugees are held on two islands, independent Nauru and one belonging to Papua New Guinea.
Australia has also agreed to permit some 1,250 U.S. Marines per year to rotate through Australia for training. The United States and Australia have been military allies since World War I, including as part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group, a partnership with Britain, Canada and New Zealand.
Mr. Trump has called the refugee exchange agreement “dumb” and “the worst deal ever.” Some have said that Mr. Trump hung up on Mr. Turnbull, although the Australian leader says not. If the new American president has fallen out with the Australian leader, Mr. Turnbull would be following Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto down that rocky path. Mr. Pena Nieto was scheduled to visit Washington last week but canceled after public fireworks with Mr. Trump over the president’s declaration that he maintained his position that Mexico would be forced to pay for the wall he says he intends to construct along the 2,000-mile U.S.Mexico border.
There is no reason for the United States and Australia to become hostile to each other, whatever the personal relations between the two leaders might be. The nation of 24 million, in spite of its long alliance with the United States, is bound to keep its economic sights on China. China is its best customer, taking 34 percent of Australia’s exports. It is also Australia’s biggest provider, selling it 23 percent of its imports. Mr. Trump canceled America’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership last month, prompting Australia and New Zealand to raise the idea of preserving TPP and inviting China to join.
It is unclear what Mr. Trump’s reasoning was in choosing to stiffarm Mr. Turnbull, whether it was negotiating tactics or self-indulgence, but it is hard to see what the United States has to gain from his action.