Latest / The Front / Trump brawls with Malcolm Turnbull, as huge tariffs kick in

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Trump brawls with Malcolm Turnbull, as huge tariffs kick in · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, March twelve, twenty twenty five. The plot thickens
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  Speaker 1: in a string of anti Semitic attacks. Now police say
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  Speaker 1: a former high ranking bikey boss directed hired criminals to
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  Speaker 1: firebomb a business. That's after authorities revealed their theory a
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: caravan packed with explosives was a criminal conjob, multiple alleged
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  Speaker 1: offenders and now before the courts. And you can follow
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the twists and turns in this story at the Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot com au. Ukraine has accepted a thirty day ceasefire
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  Speaker 1: proposal orchestrated by the United States, with negotiations to commence
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  Speaker 1: immediately with Russia. Now, the Americans say the ball is
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  Speaker 1: in Vladimir Putin's court to accept the truce or not.
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  Speaker 1: Just hours to go until the United States punishing tariffs
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  Speaker 1: on Australian steel and aluminium kick in as the White
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  Speaker 1: House rejects Australia's please for an exemption. In the middle
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  Speaker 1: of all that, Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull have been
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  Speaker 1: going at each other's throats.
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  Speaker 2: What's that all about.
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  Speaker 1: And what does it do to our economy and our politics.
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  Speaker 1: If you go scrolling through Donald J. Trump's social media
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  Speaker 1: feed on his preferred platform, Truth Social, you'll step into
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  Speaker 1: the president's very public, private world. We've used an AI
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  Speaker 1: voice generator to bring some of the president's thoughts to life.
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  Speaker 1: There are opinions.
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  Speaker 3: Nobody has been tougher on Russia than Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 1: Memes, grabs of Trump out and about.
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  Speaker 3: And We're going to become so rich, You're not going
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  Speaker 3: to know where to spend all that money. I'm telling you,
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  Speaker 3: you just watch.
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  Speaker 1: And then a vicious attack on a former Australian Prime minister.
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  Speaker 3: Malcolm Turnbull, the former Prime minige st of Australia, who
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  Speaker 3: was always leading that wonderful country from behind, never understood
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  Speaker 3: what was going on in China, nor did he have
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  Speaker 3: the capacity to do so.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we're here.
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  Speaker 3: I always thought he was a weak and ineffective leader,
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  Speaker 3: and obviously Australians agreed with me.
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump was responding to an interview with Bloomberg where
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  Speaker 1: Malcolm Turnbull, as he does quite a lot these days,
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  Speaker 1: gave his frank assessment of the President, in this case
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  Speaker 1: on his desire for retaliatory tariffs on America's trading partners.
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  Speaker 4: So you're seeing a much more undiluted Donald Trump second
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  Speaker 4: time around. People are very pessimistic about the consequence of
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  Speaker 4: his policies. I mean, if this triggers a global wave
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  Speaker 4: of protectionism around the world, that's clearly going to be
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  Speaker 4: bad for business everywhere. Trump seems to have a view
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  Speaker 4: that America can prosper at the expense of everybody else.
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  Speaker 4: But that's not going to work, that's right, And.
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  Speaker 1: This is the bit that one suspects got the president
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  Speaker 1: all riled up.
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  Speaker 4: I think China will take advantage, massive advantage of Trump.
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  Speaker 4: But my prediction will be that presidency will aim to
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  Speaker 4: be the exact opposite of Trump. Where Trump is chaotic,
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  Speaker 4: he will be consistent. Where Trump is rude and abusive,
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  Speaker 4: he'll be respectful. Where Trump is erratic, he will be consistent.
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  Speaker 4: And what that will do is build trust with countries.
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  Speaker 4: And there will be many countries who will looking at
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  Speaker 4: China on the one hand and Trump on the other,
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  Speaker 4: will find China a more attractive partner.
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is The Australian's chief political correspondent. Jeff, the
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  Speaker 1: thing that seems to have got Donald Trump annoyed is
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  Speaker 1: an interview with Bloomberg where Malcolm Turnbull talked about Trump's
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  Speaker 1: tariff's policy, but then also said that President Shijinping of
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  Speaker 1: China would really take massive advantage of Trump, would out
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  Speaker 1: negotiate him. What is your sense of whether it was
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  Speaker 1: a good idea for Malcolm Turnbull to get involved in
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  Speaker 1: this conversation with Trump.
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  Speaker 5: I don't think that Malcolm Turnbull cares much for whether
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  Speaker 5: things are good ideas or not. He loves the limelight,
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  Speaker 5: and we've got prime ministers that step away from the
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  Speaker 5: public sphere and in recent times, whether it's Malcolm Turnbull,
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  Speaker 5: Kevin rad or Paul Keating, that you're seeing prime ministers
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  Speaker 5: very much injecting themselves into public debate when it suits them.
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  Speaker 5: Malcolm Turnble would have been fully aware that Thursday, Australian
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  Speaker 5: time is the start of these proposed tariffs from the
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  Speaker 5: Trump administration which will capture Australian steel and aluminium. So
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  Speaker 5: days out from that he goes on Bloomberg, which is
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  Speaker 5: a very heavily watched, very reputable platform, and I think
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  Speaker 5: he would have been over the moon that Donald Trump
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  Speaker 5: has given him a shout out. If you're the abeneasy government,
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  Speaker 5: not so great for them. But in what he said,
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  Speaker 5: a lot of people around the world, outside of America
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  Speaker 5: and outside of the marga hardcore people wouldn't disagree with
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  Speaker 5: some of his observations, but he was being provocative. But
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  Speaker 5: no doubt he will now use that for a long
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  Speaker 5: period of time throughout this term as a guy that
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  Speaker 5: can get under the skin of the US President.
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  Speaker 1: Back in the wild early days of the first Trump presidency,
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  Speaker 1: Malcolm Turnbull, as Prime Minister, got the President on the
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  Speaker 1: phone and asked him to honor a deal made by
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  Speaker 1: his predecessor to consider taking up to two thousand refugees
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  Speaker 1: who'd come to Australia by boat. The transcript of that
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  Speaker 1: January twenty seventeen corps was later obtained by The Washington
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  Speaker 1: Post and published in full, and it reveals a quite
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  Speaker 1: remarkable interplay between the two men. It starts with Trump
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  Speaker 1: fuming about the deal. We've used voice actors and that
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  Speaker 1: AI voice generator to bring some snippets of the conversation
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  Speaker 1: to life.
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  Speaker 3: It sends such a bad signal. You have no idea.
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  Speaker 3: It is such a bad thing.
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  Speaker 2: Can you hear me out, mister president?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, go ahead, Yes, the agreement does not require you
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  Speaker 6: to take two thousand people. It does not require you
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  Speaker 6: to take any It requires in return for us to
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  Speaker 6: do a number of things for the United States.
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  Speaker 2: This is a big deal. I think we should respect deals.
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  Speaker 3: Who made the deal Obama, Yes, but let.
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  Speaker 6: Me describe what it is. I think it is quite consistent.
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  Speaker 6: I think you can comply with it. It is absolutely
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  Speaker 6: consistent with your executive order. So please just hear me out.
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  Speaker 3: Trump wants to know why haven't you let them out?
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  Speaker 3: Why have you not let them into your society?
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  Speaker 6: Okay, I will explain why. It is not because they
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  Speaker 6: are bad people. It is because in order to stop
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  Speaker 6: people smugglers, we had to deprive them of the product.
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  Speaker 6: So we said, if you try to come to Australia
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  Speaker 6: by boat, even if we I think you are the
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  Speaker 6: best person in the world, even if you are a
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  Speaker 6: Nobel Prize winning genius, we will not let you in
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  Speaker 6: because the problem with the people.
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  Speaker 3: That is a good idea. We should do that too.
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  Speaker 3: You are worse than I am.
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  Speaker 1: By the end of the call, Trump is agreeing, still reluctantly,
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  Speaker 1: to stick with Obama's deal.
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  Speaker 3: I am going to get killed on this thing.
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  Speaker 2: You will not, Malcolm.
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  Speaker 3: I have had it. I have been making these calls
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  Speaker 3: all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day.
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  Speaker 3: Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you for your commitment. It is very important to us.
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  Speaker 3: It is important to you, and it is embarrassing to me.
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  Speaker 3: It is an embarrassment to me. But at least I
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  Speaker 3: got you off the hook. So you put me back
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  Speaker 3: on the hook.
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  Speaker 2: You can count on me. I will be there again
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  Speaker 2: and again, I hope.
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  Speaker 3: So Okay, thank you, Malcolm.
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  Speaker 5: I think this time around it's a different circumstance. Yes,
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  Speaker 5: there was that famous conversation between Donald Trump and Malcolm
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  Speaker 5: Turnbull just after Trump had come to the White House
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  Speaker 5: and inherited the refugee deal swap that Barak Obama had
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  Speaker 5: agreed to. But let's not be under the illusion that
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  Speaker 5: Malcolm Turbul subsequent to that did not do what most
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  Speaker 5: prime ministers do, and that is ingratiate themselves to Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 5: That's typically the dynamic that occurs. And once he got
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  Speaker 5: that exemption, then they talked up just how close they
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  Speaker 5: were and how alike they were. And for Malcolm Turble
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  Speaker 5: to now suggest that somehow he always took on the
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  Speaker 5: big bully. You know, when you're in office and you're
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  Speaker 5: in power, it's a very different scenario. The fact is
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  Speaker 5: that Malcolm Turbull was a world leader in taking on China.
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  Speaker 5: He banned Huawei, he introduced very tough foreign interference laws,
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  Speaker 5: and he scrapped an extradition treaty with China, and that
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  Speaker 5: really was the start of those deteriorating relations with Beijing.
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  Speaker 5: And subsequent to that, all our five ICE partners, including
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  Speaker 5: the US, then realized that imminent threat that China pose
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  Speaker 5: on that front. You have to give Malcolm Turnble credit. Yes,
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  Speaker 5: Peter Dutton and others were in key roles and some
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  Speaker 5: security heads were really pushing that. But for the record,
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  Speaker 5: it was under the Turnbull government. And then obviously the
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  Speaker 5: remark that Donald Trump's saying that Australians booted Malcolm Turnbull
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  Speaker 5: out of office.
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  Speaker 1: So now are we back where we started with this
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  Speaker 1: very hostile exchange.
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  Speaker 5: Look in a way, it's often another realm. There was
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  Speaker 5: a lot of pessimism in the Alberzi government ranks. So
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  Speaker 5: we saw Penny Wong, Richard marleson, most recently Jim Chalmers
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  Speaker 5: head to Washington to make the case. Kevin Rudd is
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  Speaker 5: also hosted a couple of times the US Commerce Secretary
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  Speaker 5: Howard Lutnik, who was an influential player in all this,
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  Speaker 5: and on all occasions they've come away empty handed and
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  Speaker 5: they've basically been told this is the US president's decision.
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  Speaker 5: While steel and our uminium they're not really massive in
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  Speaker 5: terms of our exports to the US, and Blue Scope,
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  Speaker 5: who operate out of Kembler have got a lot of
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  Speaker 5: big investments over there in the States. The government really
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  Speaker 5: want to make clear that they are taking it seriously
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  Speaker 5: and they're still hopeful. But there's other concerns in the
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  Speaker 5: government post election that whether it's copper, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, that
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  Speaker 5: this tariff war or this tariff imposition could broaden to
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  Speaker 5: other areas that are much more important to our economy.
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  Speaker 5: So if you mishandle it, or you go too far
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  Speaker 5: and through a campaign, Donald Trump puts a social media
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  Speaker 5: post out and says, I'm not so sure about UCUS.
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  Speaker 5: It's got the potential if you mishandle it to escalate
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  Speaker 5: very quickly. And we've seen this with other world leaders
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  Speaker 5: that you've got to play the game with Trump.
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is the Australian's chief political correspondent. You can
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  Speaker 1: follow developments live at the Australian dot com dot au