All credit to Turnbull for trying to seal deal with a troubled Trump

President Donald Trump’s first meeting with Malcolm Turnbull.

Donald Trump may be a very odd president but he is an endless gift to journalism and sensation.

The leaking of the transcript of the conversation between Trump and Malcolm Turnbull over the refugee swap deal reflects nothing but credit on the Prime Minister and the reverse on the President.

Indeed, it shows that the private Trump, even in a conversation with a fellow head of government, is just as ill-mannered and blindly resistant to facts as the public Trump.

The criticism of Turnbull for the conversation is formulaic and misplaced. The Greens think it shows him to be heartless. The Labor Party thinks it shows him to be duplicitous. Kevin Rudd ludicrously claims it goes to Turnbull’s integrity. And that rather strange sub-group that has ­decided that Trump can actually do no wrong doesn’t like the fact that Turnbull disagreed with Trump at all.

Turnbull had every right to believe that no version of the conversation, much less a transcript of it, would leak. In one respect only, its revelation justifies a Trump complaint — that everybody around him leaks. But the conversation shows absolutely nothing to Turnbull’s discredit. Quite the reverse.

A sensible prime minister goes into a conversation with a US president with two objectives in mind: to build a relationship and to secure one or more specific outcomes. Contrary to popular belief, national leaders, including Australian prime ministers, seldom shoot the breeze just for the sake of it.

Turnbull did try to help his relationship with Trump, offering generous congratulations to The Donald, referencing conversations he’d had with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, emphasis­ing the common identity of Trump and Turnbull as businessmen in politics, finding what parts of Trump’s political program he could to identify with, and stressing Australia’s closeness to the US as an ally.

But in this conversation the specific was more important than the general. Turnbull had one overriding objective — to keep the refugee swap deal alive. Australian officials have said our willingness to take some refugees from Costa Rica is not connected to the US commitment to take up to 1250 people from Manus Island and Nauru. It was always obvious that was a ridiculous claim but the Trump-Turnbull conversation puts it beyond doubt.

Still, there is no criticism of Turnbull here. That is the kind of diplomatic fiction in which governments frequently engage.

The conversation discloses a patient, polite and lucid Turnbull trying to explain the deal to Trump — and Trump, in what we now realise is a characteristic combination, holding a very strong opinion about something of which he is deeply ignorant.

In the course of the exchange, Trump keeps repeating three basic mistakes about the arrangement. First, that it involves 2000 people. Second, that these people are all now in jail. And third, that the US is committed to the number of 2000.

Politely and repeatedly, Turnbull keeps trying to point out to Trump that the number is 1250. At first Trump responds to this by saying he’s heard it’s 5000, as though the Australian Prime Minister would either not know or deliberately lie to the President about it.

Turnbull also tries to explain that the people on Nauru and Manus are not in jail, but Trump refuses to hear him. And finally Turnbull tries to calm an increasingly agitated, emotional and almost irrational Trump by telling him that in the end the US can take as many or as few as it likes. The key thing is that Trump not renege on the deal in principle.

Again I think this is smart: Turnbull, I would guess, realises that with all the US institutional commitment to the arrangement, so long as it stays on track in principle it will probably work out OK in practice. In any event, Turnbull in the conversation plainly believes it’s better to keep the deal alive in some manner than to have Trump kill it in one petulant telephone conversation.

Trump starts the conversation matily enough, telling Turnbull Australia’s policy of refusing entry to people who arrive illegally by boat is “a good idea, we should do that”. He even pays Turnbull a compliment of sorts: “You are worse than I am”, which certainly underscores Turnbull’s credentials on border control.

Turnbull repeatedly asks Trump, in different ways, to honour the deal the US has made with Australia. Using Trump’s language, he says: “There is nothing more important in business than a deal is a deal. You can certainly say that it was not a deal you would have done, but you are going to stick with it.”

Trump answers Turnbull’s logic with petulant and childish emotion: “This is a stupid deal, this deal will make me look terrible.”

Towards the end of the conversation, in an outburst that underlines Trump’s imperviousness to facts and his inability to hear anything that he doesn’t like, after Turnbull has repeatedly told him the number is 1250 and Trump needn’t take even that number after extreme vetting if he doesn’t want to, Trump explodes: “I am the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people into the country and now I am agreeing to take 2000 people.”

The bottom line of the conversation reflects only credit on Turnbull. He convinced Trump to stick with an arrangement he hates that is greatly helpful to Australia.

And in a bizarre way the bottom line is also creditable to Trump. For the sake of Australia, Trump did something he intrinsically hates doing.

How many other international leaders have talked Trump into doing something he doesn’t want to do?

A further reflection is that, as usual, Trump’s words were horrible and even a bit irrational, but the ultimate action of his administration was not too bad.

When the broad contents and tone of the Trump-Turnbull conversation were leaked, there was a great outpouring across the US of goodwill towards Australia.

Vice-President Mike Pence, the secretaries of State and Defence, and the legendary senator John McCain all made visits to Australia to reassure us of their nation’s commitment to the alliance.

For the past couple of days I have been attending the 25th annual meeting of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue. The dialogue is a landmark institution in the relationship and does well in any year.

But this year Admiral Mike Rogers, the head of the US National Security Agency, has attended as well as four congressmen and countless officials, former officials and think tank ­figures.

The congressmen in particular are quite explicit that their attendance is part of a pattern of congressional travel to allies to reassure them, in this case of the continued US commitment to Australia and to the military alliance between the two.

Congressman Joe Courtney, a Democrat from Connecticut, tells me the US system is full of “automatic stabilisers” that rein in a potentially reckless (my words, not his) president. Congress, he says, is a separate arm of government, as are the administration and the judiciary. Congress is increasingly assertive. It legislated sanctions against Russia and then also made it virtually impossible for the President to veto those sanctions.

“One of the reasons we want to convey the message that the US government is made up of three branches is because there is such strong support in congress for this (US-Australia) alliance,” he says.

“It is very bipartisan. Congress is very supportive of the alliances which have created such stability.” He adds that it is “intervening in foreign policy and limiting” the President’s potential actions.

The congressman says the President signed the Russia sanctions bill “through gritted teeth”.

“The Republican majority did not impose those sorts of limitations on President (Barack) Obama” in relation to sanctions, he says. “But they don’t give President Trump that kind of latitude.”

Courtney is a national security Democrat. He laments the fact his party is rated by Americans well behind Republicans in being able to handle security: “If we’re going to win the House of Representatives back, or the Senate, we have to have a really serious message on national defence,” he says.

Courtney is a strong supporter of missile defence, which he says is no longer a partisan issue within America.

And he accuses China of destabilising actions in the South China Sea.

Most particularly, he campaigns for a bigger American navy.

These are all positions that are beneficial to Australia and it is a very good thing that the congressman deepen his connections with us by attending the Australian American Dialogue.

I asked another Democratic congressman, Ed Perlmutter from Colorado, what the effect of the Trump presidency has been on US alliances.

“It’s caused them to fray to some degree,” he replies.

“But there are basic institutions in place that maintain the relationship, the order, despite the ups and downs and noise in the political sphere, and the drama that envelops the White House day today.

“It (the Trump presidency) has not been easy for anybody. That’s me speaking as a Democrat, but it’s pretty obvious.

“But the US commitment to this alliance is bipartisan.”

Then I went to a Republican congressman, Brad Wenstrup of Ohio. He seems to avoid some of the political chaos: “I don’t get the President’s tweets. I have lots of other things to do all day.”

Quite sensibly, Wenstrup cautions against overstating any disruption to alliances: “I look at the previous (Obama) administration. There was talk of disruption in our Middle East alliances. From where I sit on the armed services and intelligence committee, our alliances are strong.”

The US-Australia relationship, he says, is “as strong as it’s been for as long as it’s been”.

The commitment of these congressmen and their colleagues to the US-Australia alliance, to the US alliance system more generally, and to the continued role of leadership and engagement by the US in the world is a precious national asset not only for America but for Australia too.

We should nurture it at every opportunity.

Which is what, quite legitimately, Turnbull was trying to do in that infamous conversation.