No wonder Malcolm Turnbull's office down-played last Sunday's announcement that the Trump Administration had finally committed to the proposed Australia-US refugee swap deal. We now know, thanks to a leak to the Washington Post, that the phone call confirming the deal was strained, that the US President called it the "worst deal ever", and that he [Mr Trump] ended the conversation after 25 minutes – even though it had been scheduled to last an hour. But any embarrassment Mr Turnbull may have felt after his White House call was as nothing compared to the mortification visited on him on Thursday when Mr Trump tweeted "Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal".
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With those 23 words incendiary words, Mr Trump shattered any belief that Australia's alliance with the US is inviolate, and forced Mr Turnbull to hurriedly and not very convincingly declare that the deal would proceed. Mr Trump's humiliation of a long-standing American ally barely two weeks into his term of office confirms widely held suspicions that his presidency will be populist, isolationist, angry and unpredictable.
Thursday's extraordinary tweet would have come as no surprise to anyone who parsed Mr Trump's campaign rhetoric, paid careful attention to his inauguration speech, or who'd studied his personality. Mr Trump has been entirely consistent in telling voters that he would put their interests ahead of all others while transforming America and the world order. His basic personality traits (high on extroversion and reward-seeking behaviour, low on agreeableness, warmth and care for others) all point to a willingness to "swing for the fences" in order to gain big pay-offs. And his business career has been marked by a willingness to court controversy and to bargain hard and aggressively.
Many hoped and expected the bureaucracy, and the other two branches of America's government would temper Mr Trump's more immoderate political impulses, and that may yet prove to be the case after they've have adjusted to his unconventional methods. It's possible the Washington Post leak of the Trump-Turnbull conversation was an attempt by the State Department to do just that, although Mr Trump's subsequent tweet underlines his low susceptibility to embarrassment. Appreciable voter support for Mr Trump's transactional style in the Midwest may also help explain his decision to add to Mr Turnbull's discomfort.
It's probable Mr Trump's posturing is more about one-upmanship and putting the Turnbull government in his debt than a premeditated desire to scupper the deal – let alone downgrade the Australia-US alliance. To that extent, suggestions the two countries have engaged in a "war of words" are exaggerated and unnecessarily alarmist.
Until Mr Trump's philosophy of governing becomes fixed, Australia has little choice but to wear the slings and arrows of his outrage, as indeed do most of America's other allies. America's enemies may react differently, however, which is a matter of real concern.
