NEW YORK: Donald Trump and Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull met for a patch-things-up summit in New York Thursday, with the US president saying an earlier telephone spat was “all worked out.”
Trump claimed a bad-tempered call with the Australian prime minister early in his White House tenure had been “fake news” that was a “big exaggeration” by the media.
Trump reportedly exploded and cut short the call when he was told about a Barack Obama-era deal to move refugees from Australia to America.
The president took to Twitter afterward to label the agreement as “dumb,” rattling a decades-old alliance.
“It’s all worked out. It’s been worked out for a long time,” Trump said, as the pair, dressing in black tie, smiled and swapped legislative war stories.
“We had a great telephone call. You guys exaggerated that call. That was a big exaggeration. We’re not babies,” Trump said, reverting to his favored tactic of media-bashing.
“We get along great. We have a fantastic relationship, I love Australia, I always have,” Trump said as the pair met for the first time.
Turnbull said that “we can put the refugee deal behind you and move on.”
Trump and Turnbull gathered in New York, hoping to steady the long-standing alliance after relations soured at a time of growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific.
The two leaders convened on a decommissioned aircraft carrier, the Intrepid, in New York, to mark the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea.
The World War II fight against Japanese forces forged an alliance that has seen Australia pitch in alongside the United States in every major conflict since.
Trump’s first return to his hometown since becoming president was marked by protests. Hundreds of opponents, shouted slogans as his motorcade passed.
The crisis over North Korea’s nuclear and weapons programs and a fence-mending trip by Vice President Mike Pence to Sydney appears to have eased tension between the United States and Australia.
After meeting Turnbull, Pence said the United States would take the refugees but added it “doesn’t mean we admire the agreement.”
Turnbull, like Trump a businessman-turned-politician, has said he is “delighted” to meet with the US leader and affirm the relationship.
Trump, for his part, said he would be happy to travel Down Under.
“Oh that will happen. It’s one of the great, great places. It’s one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I have so many friends there. I’ll be there. We’ll be there — absolutely we’ll be there.”
The advent of Trump has invigorated a debate over Australia’s place in the world and whether its future lies with an unpredictable United States, or a closer relationship with China, its top trading partner.
Several former senior Australian diplomats have also urged Canberra to rethink ties with the US in light of China’s rise.
The icy start was cooled further by Washington’s withdrawal from a trans-Pacific trade agreement that would have given Australian businesses greater access to the US and key regional markets.
Trump meets Australia’s Turnbull, says spat ‘all worked out’
Trump meets Australia’s Turnbull, says spat ‘all worked out’
US congresswoman supports censure of colleague over comments against Arabs, Muslims
- Republican Randy Fine ‘spreading hate,’ Democrat Robin Kelly tells Arab News
- ‘Members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain’
CHICAGO: Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly has said she supports calls in the US House to censure Florida Congressman Randy Fine, who has repeatedly made derogatory comments about Muslims and Arabs on his official social media accounts.
Kelly, a Democrat, denounced anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements made by Fine, a Republican, saying she expects a censure resolution to be put together by House members possibly next week.
“There’s just no room for hate. That’s just the bottom line. I’ve seen hate. It causes people to lose their lives. It causes people to not have the same opportunities as other people. It causes people to have extra stress, extra trauma. And to categorize a whole group of people is so unfair,” Kelly told Arab News.
“I come from a family with a lot of different ethnicities or cultures, and I’ve seen the damage that hate has done in categorizing any one community.
“The Islamic community is just always presented as the bad guy in the movies and on TV … Being a person of color and seeing things that even my own family have gone through, I’m just very sensitive to it.”
Last month, when a supporter of New York’s Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on social media that dogs have no place in a Muslim home, Fine wrote: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Then on Feb. 20, Fine introduced to Congress the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” cosponsored by nine Republicans.
Fine has been criticized in the past for making Islamophobic and anti-Arab comments on his social medial pages.
Last May, when Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib said it was “a crime to use starvation as a weapon in Gaza,” Fine responded: “Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender. Until then, #StarveAway.”
During his election campaign in December 2023, in response to an anonymous poster on X who criticized delays in getting food trucks into Gaza, Fine wrote: “Stop the trucks. Let them eat rockets. There are plenty of those. #Bombsaway.”
Before running for Congress, responding to a New York Times report and photo of 67 Arab children killed by Israel, he said: “Thanks for the pic.”
Muslim groups in Florida have been complaining about Fine’s rhetoric since 2021, including after he sent a private Instagram message to a Florida Muslim saying: “Go blow yourself up!”
Kelly said she is also disturbed by the comments of Fine’s allies, citing them as a broader undercurrent of Islamophobia rising in the US.
She insisted that Islamophobia is no different than antisemitism or racism against other groups, including African Americans like herself.
Fine and Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles “are spreading hate and should be censured,” Kelly wrote on her own Facebook page this past week.
“Our country is already divided enough, members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain.”
Ogles, a cosponsor of the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” declared: “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie.”
Kelly, who was elected to Congress in 2013, said: “I think they should all be censured. I say to people that feel the Islamophobia, ‘Don’t get weary, don’t get lost in the chaos. That’s what they want you to do. You can’t go in your house and close the door. You have to be a voice. You can’t stay on the sidelines because this isn’t acceptable.’”
Arab News reached out to Fine for comment.
