Malcolm Turnbull hoped he had found a kindred spirit in Donald Trump.
"I suppose as both being businessmen who found our way into politics somewhat later in life, we come to the problems of our own nations and indeed world problems with a pragmatic approach," the Prime Minister remarked in November, having secured an early phone call with Mr Trump soon after his election victory.
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Then came an unprecedented roasting of an Australian prime minister by a US president.
Mr Trump complained his most recent conversation with Mr Turnbull was the "worst call by far" among world leaders, only to later Tweet about the "dumb deal" to settle "thousands of" (actually 1250) refugees.
Now, experts are calling for Mr Turnbull to move the ANZUS alliance beyond worn-out cliches about two nations with shared values and common destiny.
"It shows the brutally transactional view that Trump is going to take about relationships," said James Curran, a historian specialising in Australian foreign policy at the University of Sydney.
"Australian leaders are going to have to come up with a fresh approach. The language of sentiment and shared values will not work."
Speaking from Singapore, former foreign minister Bob Carr said the furore around the phone call dispelled any notion that Australia should tighten ties with the Trump administration or had a special relationship with America.
Declaring Mr Trump's behaviour would lead to a wholesale reassessment of ties to Washington, Mr Carr said: "It forces us to drop romantic notions of the alliance and now be more realistic."
"It liberates leaders to say no to Washington if it seeks to recruit us for any reckless adventure," he said.
"America has taken a nationalist direction and won't be returning to global leadership as we've understood it."
It's not like Australian leaders haven't had a row with their US counterparts before. Professor Curran last year published a book Fighting with America, charting the pitfalls in the relationship - including during Australian military intervention in East Timor and especially fraught times in the Whitlam era.
Kevin Rudd had an infamous barney with George W. Bush in 2008 over the contents of another leaked telephone call.
Liberal foreign minister Alexander Downer once had a terse private debate with then US secretary of state Colin Powell about faulty intelligence assessments after it became clear Saddam Hussein was not stockpiling weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
But Professor Curran said Mr Trump's berating Mr Turnbull was the sharpest exchange between the allies in decades.
According to an account of the weekend phone call in the Washington Post, Mr Trump ended the call just as Mr Turnbull sought to turn the conversation to Syria, presumably in an effort to remind the President of Australia's military contribution to the US-led campaign against Islamic State.
Lowy Institute Middle East specialist and former Australian Army officer Rodger Shanahan said the abrupt call between the leaders was unlikely to have an operational impact.
Dr Shanahan said other senior officials in the Trump administration knew Australia well and there was great mutual respect - including Michael Flynn, Mr Trump's National Security Advisor who was sanctioned last year for passing classified US intelligence to Australian counterparts without permission.
But there is also an expectation Mr Trump will use unpredictability as a weapon against friend and foe alike.
"Trying to predict Trump is like trying to control the weather," said Iain Henry, a lecturer in strategic studies at the Australian National University.
Dr Henry said it was impossible to know whether Mr Trump was simply in a bad mood, or felt he might have negotiated a better deal himself.
And among insiders, who know Mr Trump has an eye on audiences domestic more than diplomatic, the hope he might run a pragmatic administration has evaporated fast.