By now Australians know that the new US President, Donald Trump, has yelled at our Prime Minister over a “refugee swap” deal, “badgered him”, “bragged” and “hung up on him” 25 minutes into a scheduled one hour phone call.
Trump labelled the deal to accept 1250 refugees, who are currently in Australian off-shore detention centres, “dumb” and told Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, during his phone conversation, that he had been talking to various world leaders all day and this call was the “worst so far”.
The refugee relocation deal between Australia and the US was agreed to under the Obama administration, and the timing of it is a PR disaster for Trump as it comes on the heels of the executive order he signed last month suspending all refugees from the US for 120 days and banning citizens of seven Muslim majority countries from entering the US for the next 90 days.
The 1250 refugees in the two Australian processing centres have already been declared genuine.
When The Washington Post broke the story of the heated phone call between two leaders earlier this week it made headlines around the world and led the news in the US.
Trump berates Australian PM over ‘dumb’ refugee deal. – The Times – UK
‘Worst so far’: Trump ‘hangs up’ on Australian PM after heated call, report says. – RT – Russian English language news channel
Trump’s harsh talk with Malcolm Turnbull of Australia strains another alliance. – The New York Times
Trump rips into into Turnbull, calls refugee deal dumb. – Al Jazeera
Top Comments
>> Mr Trump. When you disrespect our Prime Minister, you disrespect all of us.
You're kidding of course. Who cares? And I don't have any respect for Trumble (sic) anyway.
It started before that with the Liberal loss of the 2007 election, and the Republicans' loss of the 2008 election.
Then Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews signed a deal with George W Bush in the months leading up to the 2007 election.
Australia was to swap asylum seekers intercepted at sea by Australia, with America's Haitian and Cuban detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.
The Liberals and Republicans lost their respective elections in 2007 and 2008, now here we are in 2017 trying to revive the people swap deal.