President stuns the world — by doing what he said he’d do

Once again Donald Trump has stunned the world by doing as President more or less exactly what he promised he would do.

Once again Donald Trump has stunned the world by doing as President more or less exactly what he promised he would do as a candidate, but which nobody quite believed at the time.

Of course he did it in a clumsy and controversial manner, thus enraging domestic and international opinion. That too has been a characteristic part of the Trump playbook and so far has never done him any political harm.

At the same time, the President has explicitly upheld his commitment to the refugee resettlement deal the US has with Canberra, which is a tribute to the strength of the US-Australia relationship and the speed and effectiveness of the Turnbull government’s advocacy for this deal made with the Obama administration.

The substance of Trump’s crackdown on immigration is controversial enough, but the way it was implemented was awful, creating maximum chaos and anxiety, although this may yet work for Trump at some level politically.

Trump’s moves were so chaotic because they were not prepared properly, the relevant US agencies were unsure what they were meant to be doing, and the moves had a kind of retrospective element.

That is, people who were already on planes going to the US when the decision was taken were turned around or stranded at transit stops or, if they landed in the US they were sent back, or threatened with being sent back or in some cases detained.

This is manifestly unfair. It caused a lot of distress. And it raises the question of whether foreign nations, and foreign governments, can rely on being dealt with in good faith by the Trump administration.

Similarly it turned out that some people with green cards — that is, legal residency in the US and a legal right to work there — and were out of the country making a perfectly lawful international visit of some kind were also subject to this ruling.

They were apparently not to be banned but reassessed.

Then the American courts intervened to say the administration could not for the moment send back people who had valid visas.

Legal precedent would suggest the US President can keep out whoever he likes. The court has not made a final ruling on this, merely issued a temporary order.

But it is a horrible way for Trump to implement policies, elements of which may be defensible. The reason this may still possibly work for Trump politically is that much of his audience is people who don’t normally engage with politics.

Part of his electoral success came from getting people to vote who don’t normally vote.

The enormity of the outrage from liberal voices — though at least some of that outrage is justified on this occasion — will help convince those Trump voters that, against all expectations, he has kept faith with them. Once again, some people at least will support Trump precisely because there is an uncouthness about the way he acts.

The confusion of the past day or two will pass soon enough and the American system will resume an orderly procedure.

Whatever the courts do, they will not alter the direction of Trump’s policy.

It was wrong procedurally to treat this way existing visa holders, people who had begun their journeys and green card holders and the like. But if Trump wants to he can simply instruct US consulates and embassies not to issue any visas at all in certain countries.

The whole thing resembles the Mexican wall controversy. The US has a right to secure its borders. Trump is perfectly entitled to build a wall if he wants to. He has absolutely no moral claim to try to make the Mexicans pay for it.

There is a lot of danger in all this, although also a lot of relatively manageable theatre.

In the meantime, the fact that even Trump is apparently willing — though, of course, let’s observe the details in the actual implementation — to make an exception to his immigration bans in order to keep faith with Barack Obama’s deal with Malcolm Turnbull on the folks at Manus Island and Nauru, is an enormous tribute to Australia’s standing in the US.

It is also a sign that if Canberra acts and speaks shrewdly it can maximise its influence with the Trump administration.