Immediately, a call with Trump was set up for 9am Sunday, Sydney time. Wed been assured the refugee deal was agreed, so we worked on the other topics to discuss. Then the sky fell in. Just as I got to the office, Mike Flynn called Justin Bassi and Pence called Julie Bishop both with the message that the president had changed his mind. He wouldnt, under any circumstances, honour the deal and would I please not even mention it. We were in the prime ministers office in Sydney, looking down over the harbour with all of its benign tranquillity. I feared the call was going to be a rough ride. And it was. Trump sounded tired. He was friendly enough at the outset but his mood quickly changed. As soon as I raised the refugee deal he became angry, repeating again and again that honouring the Obama deal would kill him and embarrass him. He said, I will be seen as a weak and ineffective leader in my first week by these people. This is a killer.
I described how the deal was fair, benefiting the US too. And the people on Manus and Nauru were not a security risk. But if you come by boat, you cant get into Australia. Even if you were a Nobel prize winner, I said. So youre a new CEO: you inherit some deals you dont like; you honour them, take a writedown and blame your predecessor. Trump argued that, as a businessman, I must have torn up deals. I told him I hadnt. I believed promises should be kept, whether by companies or countries. I didnt make commitments lightly, and kept them when I did. As his anger rose, Trump kept talking over the top of me, with more intensity; it was as though at times he was talking to himself or perhaps the people in the room, which of course included Steve Bannon, one of the deals fiercest opponents.
At one point, I looked up from the phone across my desk at [media adviser] David Bold his face was white with horror so I turned to look out the window instead. I had to get Trump to commit to the deal. Not only was it vital for our whole plan to resettle the refugees without getting the people smugglers back in business, an early rejection by Trump would be a political catastrophe in Australia. So, I reasoned with Trump and finally won him over. At the end of it all, I still wasnt sure that Trump would stick to the deal.
The tone and the content of the call had been dynamite. Wed had nobody from my department or from the Department of Foreign Affairs present. We kept the transcript of the call secure and didnt release it to the bureaucracy in the usual way. Not that we didnt trust them, but at times you cant be too careful. Our plan had been to keep the whole thing very low-key. The deal was going ahead; Trump didnt like it but he was a man of his word and he was sticking with it.
As the media interest grew, it appeared Trump was having cold feet as on 2 February he tweeted: Do you believe it? The Obama administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!
Later that day someone, presumably in the White House, briefed the Washington Post about the call; it described Trump blasting me, quoted him telling me this was his worst call so far and that the deal Id struck with Obama was the worst deal ever; it described his accusing me of planning to send him the next Boston bombers although it omitted to mention my riposte that the refugees on Nauru and Manus, unlike the Boston bombers, werent from Chechnya.
The Post noted that the US embassy in Canberra had stated the White House had confirmed the refugee deal was going ahead one hour and forty minutes before Trump suggested in a tweet that it might not go ahead. We assumed the leak had come from Bannon; his motive would have been either to produce enough heat to force Trump to renege on his commitment to me or, at the very least, to demonstrate to Trumps base that hed agreed to the deal only through the most gritted of teeth.
Back in Australia, I declined to comment on media reports about the call, simply restating that Trump had agreed to honour the deal and that the conversation had been frank and courteous. I expressly rejected the claim that hed hung up on me as the transcript shows he did not.
The leaking of the details and later the transcript of the call had the opposite of its intended effect. The refugee deal had never been a big news story in the US, despite the Australian medias attempts to make it so. However, berating one of Americas closest allies was a big story and both fans of Australia and critics of Trump lined up to express their solidarity with us.
For our part, it was working out well. Trump and/or Bannon had over-reached and now we had the upper hand. More importantly, unlike my counterparts leading other countries, Id got off on the right foot with Trump. Wed had a row, thats true, but Id stood my ground on a point of principle and hed conceded.
Interesting article from another leaders perspective.