Trump's clash with Australia strains alliance
https://gistzzone.blogspot.com/2017/02/ap-analysis-trumps-clash-with-australia.html
SYDNEY (AP) — For decades, Australia
and the U.S. have enjoyed the coziest of relationships, collaborating on
everything from military and intelligence to diplomacy and trade. Yet
an irritable tweet President Donald Trump fired off about Australia and a
dramatic report of an angry phone call between the nations' leaders
proves that the new U.S. commander in chief has changed the playing
field for even America's staunchest allies.
Prime
Minister Malcolm Turnbull was left scrambling to defend his country's
allegiance to the U.S. after The Washington Post published a report on
Thursday detailing a tense exchange that allegedly took place during the
Australian leader's first telephone call with Trump since he became
president. During the call, the Post reported, Trump ranted about an
agreement struck with the Obama administration that would allow a group
of mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the
United States. The newspaper said Trump dubbed it "the worst deal ever"
and accused Turnbull of seeking to export the "next Boston bombers" — a
reference to Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, U.S. citizens born in
Kyrgyzstan who set off explosives at the 2013 Boston marathon.
Though
Turnbull declined to confirm the report, he also didn't deny it, apart
from rejecting one detail — that Trump had hung up on him. The prime
minister insisted his country's relationship with the U.S. remained
strong, and that the refugee deal with the U.S. was still on.
Yet
shortly after, Trump took to Twitter to slam the agreement, tweeting:
"Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of
illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!"
Australians,
long accustomed to a chummy friendship with the U.S., were stunned by
the drama. Not since the Vietnam War — when Australia's then-Prime
Minister Gough Whitlam criticized a series of bombings authorized by
then-President Richard Nixon — has there been such obvious friction
between the leaders of the two nations.
"You
can't help but think the signal this sends to world leaders: That you
have to be very, very careful doing business with this administration,
particularly with the president and the people around him," said Simon
Jackman, CEO of the U.S. Studies Center in Sydney. "And that can't help
but put a chill on relations between allies."
Yet
the only surprising thing about Trump's reaction to the deal is that
Australians were surprised at all, said Nick Economou, a political
analyst at Monash University in Melbourne. Members of Turnbull's
conservative party probably assumed — perhaps naively — they still had a
special relationship with conservatives in the U.S., based on the close
ties the parties enjoyed during previous administrations. But if Trump
has taught the world anything, Economou said, it's that he has little
patience for tradition.
"I
suspect that there is a feeling that, 'Oh no, we've dealt with
Republicans before, we were very close to George W. Bush, we should be
fine with Mr. Trump and he'll agree to this deal,'" Economou said. "But
the thing is, of course he's not going to agree to this deal! Obama
entered into it and whatever Obama was for, Donald Trump is against."
Australia
has long been one of America's strongest allies. The nation has fought
alongside the U.S. in every major conflict since World War I, including
the Korean War, Vietnam War and, more recently, in the Middle East.
Australia is also part of the "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing program
with the U.S., along with Canada, Britain and New Zealand.
And
while few believe the spat over the refugee deal will permanently
damage those ties, it will likely prompt changes in how America's allies
approach their dealings with Washington.
The
businessman-turned-president's response — lashing out at a deal that had
already been on the table — could be a negotiation tactic he is
borrowing from his days in real estate, said Norman Abjorensen, a
political analyst at the Australian National University. And like it or
not, he said, it's a tactic Australia may need to accept.
"The
way of doing business — Australia's going to have to adjust to it,"
Abjorensen said. "There's not going to be adjustments at the other end,
for sure. The wind has shifted quite dramatically."
But while politicians may be able to adjust to Trump's whims, the Australian public may not be so forgiving, Abjorensen said.