Trump’s harsh talk with Australia leader strains another alliance

SYDNEY — Australians are used to seeing their relationship with American presidents as pals across the Pacific whose world views mesh and whose major disagreements are too few to count. That was, however, before Donald Trump picked up the phone.

Word that President Trump blasted Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in a call Saturday because of a refugee deal between the two nations bewildered this country of 25 million people which, in many ways, had long seen its closest military and diplomatic ally as a kind of benign big brother.

While experts say the alliance isn’t under threat, Trump’s tough talk could work in the prime minister’s favor — if the deal holds. The revelation that the U.S. president characterized his conversation with Turnbull as “the worst call by far” among four world leaders he spoke with Saturday, could generate some badly needed sympathy for the prime minister.

It also could provide a reality check for future policies by Australia — which has stood by America’s side in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also is increasingly engaged as a political and trade partner with Asia.

“It forces us to drop romantic notions of the alliance and now be more realistic,” said a former Australian foreign minister, Bob Carr, speaking at a forum in Singapore, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Thursday.

Australia has more at stake in U.S. immigration policy than many other developed countries. The agreement with the Obama administration to settle roughly 1,250 men, women and children in the United States — if they can pass security checks — is seen as vital to the political fortunes of the Liberal-National coalition government.

Turnbull and his Cabinet are desperate to resolve the fate of the Iranians, Sri Lankans and others living in two detention camps that have caused Australia international embarrassment.

But Trump is regarded with suspicion by many Australians, and the leader-to-leader tension could blunt opposition party attacks that Turnbull hasn’t done enough to challenge the U.S. president’s immigration policies.

Turnbull wouldn’t confirm details of the call, but alluded to Trump’s hostility. “We have had very frank and forthright discussions in which each of us has expressed our views,” he said in a radio interview after news of the conversation broke. “As Australia’s prime minister, it is my job to stand up for Australia.”

Many Australians are wary of economic refugees arriving to take advantage of their generous social security system, a fear that has prompted political parties from both sides to house asylum seekers who arrive in boats on two isolated spots in the Pacific Ocean, the nation of Nauru and the island of Manus in Papua New Guinea.