It’s bananas to take leader literally all the time

Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, centre, accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence, left, and President Donald Trump, right, leaves the stage after speaking during a White House senior staff swearing in ceremony. Picture: AP

Donald Trump shocked the world again and made decisions with huge consequences for Australia. He shocked people by doing what he said he would do, being who he has always been and speaking as he always speaks.

Trump went to CIA headquarters at Langley to make peace with the intelligence community, but outgoing CIA director John Brennan decided to make war on Trump instead.

The other decisive Trump move was to withdraw the US, straight away, from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which makes the Turnbull government’s ­continued determination to ratify the TPP nonsensical.

Withdrawing from the TPP is an action; a speech, even at the CIA, is just words. With Trump, the­­ ­difference between action and words is critical.

No one, friend or foe, foreign government or commentator, will interpret Trump properly if they apply the same yardstick to his words as to those of previous ­presidents. Love him or loathe him, interpreting Trump properly is ­essen­tial if you’re going to maxim­ise your own interests with Trump’s America.

At CIA headquarters, Trump once more mentioned that the US should have taken Iraq’s oil. He added a new riff, “maybe we’ll get another chance”. These are genuinely silly comments and it is reasonable that Trump be criticised for them.

But in trying to understand what Trump will do next, it’s wrong to think they mean he is considering another invasion of Iraq, this time taking its oil.

Trump is an extreme case but the style of political leadership and dialogue is changing across the world, influenced both by social media and the 24/7 nature of all broadcast media, as well as the ­difficulty all leaders — not just polit­ical leaders — have in even ­getting the attention of citizens who have never been more distract­ed from traditional ­institutions.

In this respect, if in no other, Trump resembles Pope Francis. The Catholic pontiff frequently sends Vatican officials into panic with his casual communications style. The Pope will have a long ­discussion with a journalist and not even have an official keep a ­recording of the conversation.

He says all kinds of stuff off the cuff and officials are left scrambling, asking, did His Holiness just change 1000-year-old ­Catholic doctrine?

With Francis, as with Trump, you have to look at the trend of his remarks. Trump is never going to try to unify the nation with the ­traditional soothing platitudes.

A lot of the criticism of his inaugur­al address was wildly overblown. There are two paths to unity — the soothing platitude or prosecuting a case and winning the argument. Trump’s brand is always­ the latter.

Come to think of it, soothing platitudes rarely get you much anyway.

Back to the CIA. Trump was criticised not for saying that he loves the CIA, and that he was never really in a feud with the ­intelligence community, but for standing in front of the CIA’s wall of stars, each of which represents a CIA officer killed in the line of duty, and for a large portion of the address giving a stump speech about his great his campaign was and how big the crowds were at the presidential inauguration.

That Trump style is not uplifting but nor is it a moral offence in itself. Trump has said plenty of ­offensive things, but for senior and responsible people to take offence where none is intended is absurd.

Brennan’s public attack on Trump, calling his speech ­“despicable self-aggrandisement”, will do more to damage the faith of ordinary Americans, and people around the world in the CIA’s ­impartiality than anything Trump has said.

Although Trump is travelling poorly in the polls right now, ­gratuitous, foolish, needless ­attacks such as those of Brennan, who was meant as CIA director to be strictly non-partisan, will help fire and motivate Trump’s voters.

But Trump is President now and his actions, as opposed to every sub-clause of every sentence he utters, will have great effect.

Trump has now killed the TPP and the Turnbull government would be well advised to recognise this. Under the terms of the TPP, to come into force it has to be ­ratified by countries representing 85 per cent of the economic activ­ity of the countries it covers.

That means that without the US the TPP simply cannot come into force. The government is exploring a TPP-minus-one option, preserv­ing all the trade gains made with other countries — for example, in access for Australian beef to Japan — but deleting the US.

That’s a negotiation worth ­pursuing, but it will be very ­difficult because the text of the treaty will have to be changed, and several countries, notably Canada and Mexico, will want to see ­exactly what Trump does with the North American Free-Trade Agreement before they make a new TPP-like commitment.

Thus, even Plan B for a TPP minus one is an extreme long shot.

But to continue talk of ratifying the TPP itself is just ridiculous. Trade agreements are hard enough to ratify when they offer tangible benefits to large, identifiable sectors of the economy.

The idea that the government could ever muster the votes to ratify­ an agreement that is hypothetical at best, and already dead in reality, is just bananas.

Here’s a lesson for all politicians in the Trump era — deal with reality and speak directly and comprehensibly to your voters.