I won’t be gaslit over Trump. If you suck up to him, you will get more bullying

On Monday afternoon, as I was walking back to my office after giving an interview to Bloomberg News, US President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. I was, he claimed, a weak and ineffectual leader and didn’t know what was going on in China. “Australian’s”[sic], he said, agreed with him.

The points I made in the interview, I had made many times, and they were hardly original. His trade war, I said, risked recession. Wall Street agrees. And I pointed out that his chaotic style of government, bullying friends and allies – threatening to annex Canada and seize Greenland, not to speak of abandoning Ukraine – made the United States look like a very unreliable ally.

Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull at the White House in February 2018.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

This would be exploited by China, I said, which this time round would seek to be as unlike Trump as possible. China would be consistent where Trump was erratic, respectful where he was abusive. This differentiation would, I said, cause many countries which were not closely aligned to the US to hedge towards China.

This was all obvious, but it clearly triggered the president, late on Sunday night in Washington.

Australia, and Australians, should have higher standards than a K Street lobbyist.

Punctuation aside, his “truth” said more about his thin-skinned, volatile temperament than it did about me. I was so “weak and ineffectual” that I stood my ground in the face of his fury, and finally persuaded him to honour a refugee deal I had done with President Obama. And then I was so “weak and ineffectual” that I managed to persuade him to give Australia an exemption from steel and aluminium tariffs in 2018.

Illustration by Matt Golding

At the time, I was told not to stand up to him. I was told to flatter him, suck up to him, offer him things. I didn’t do that, and I achieved very good outcomes for Australia.

Trump is a bully – that is like saying the Pope’s a Catholic – and if you suck up to him, you will just get more bullying. Of course there are plenty of grifters who want to get some financial benefit or other by ingratiating themselves with Trump and his entourage. But Australia, and Australians, should have higher standards than a K Street lobbyist.

I was not surprised to see the News Corp publications gleefully adopting Trump’s abuse and claiming that I had “torpedoed” any hopes of securing an exemption from steel and aluminium tariffs. It has always been most unlikely that Australia will secure an exemption this time. It was hard enough in 2018 and all the signals from the administration are that the tariffs will be applied across the board.

And it perhaps never occurred to the team at News Corp’s Holt Street HQ in Sydney that it is utterly bizarre that the unremarkable comments of a former prime minister would cause the US to decide not to exempt Australia from tariffs. Not a word of criticism of Mr Trump, of course!

I was amused to reflect on the mental stress this episode was causing our friends at News Corp. Such a target-rich environment! They can blame me for the tariffs, or Kevin Rudd, or Anthony Albanese. Surely they can work out a formula where it’s the fault of all three – but never, ever the fault of Donald Trump!

So if News Corp was not surprising, the ABC definitely was. Both on Monday night on 7.30 and on Radio National on Tuesday, I was challenged about my remarks and whether I should have self-censored, said nothing critical about Trump lest it influence him on tariffs.

The problem with compromising free speech like this is that it is a slippery slope. Are we all to bite our tongues constantly lest we incur the wrath of the president? After all, he can put tariffs up and down on a whim, and has done so several times in the last few weeks. What other mischief might he inflict on us if we dare to say what we think?

The United States under Trump is not the America we have been used to. And he doesn’t pretend it is. He does not respect the international rules-based order any more than he respects alliances and treaties. He is imposing swingeing tariffs on Canada and Mexico despite having signed the USMCA free trade agreement himself with both countries in 2018.

He has, effectively, changed sides in the war between Russia and Ukraine, cutting off military aid to, and intelligence sharing with, Ukraine. His formula for peacemaking is kneecapping Ukraine to the point that it has to accept Putin’s peace. A genuinely strong leader would use his power to compel the aggressor, Russia, to yield. Instead, he is punching down on the weaker party.

We need to have an honest conversation about this – the gaslighting has to stop. We cannot assume that an America which believes “might is right” can be relied upon as an ally. We need to be able to defend ourselves – the assumption that we will “never fight alone” is busted. Of course, we hope the US will support us in time of need, but we know now, more than ever, that under Trump, it will only do so if it is in its interests so to do. And there may be a very high price. Fancy a minerals deal?

The crisis among the Western alliance is illustrated by the former French president Francois Hollande, who said today: “While the American people may still be our friends, the Trump administration is no longer our ally.”

I certainly wouldn’t go that far, but ominously, former Australian Defence Force chief Admiral Chris Barrie has said this is the harshest wake-up call since the Fall of Singapore. We sleep through it at our peril.

Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018.

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