Obama arranged to take in large numbers of illegal, mostly Muslim migrants, that Australia did not want. The deal was made after an election in which voters had very explicitly rejected that position.
The move, like so many others, including those aimed at Jews and Cuban-Americans, was part of a malicious pattern of political vandalism by a defeated movement. Knowing the situation, Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull should never have agreed to it. Just as the United States would not angry to say, accept the handover of Sydney to us by an angry outgoing Australian government determined to do as much damage as possible on the way.
It's common sense and common decency.
Turnbull just saw a way to get rid of an irritating problem and didn't care that the arrangement would poison relations with the next administration. And he should have.
It wasn't Trump who torched relations with Australia. It was Turnbull who torched relations with America. He knew that the next United States government would hate the deal and that he was making an arrangement with a lame duck who didn't really have the authority to make it anymore.
With the phone call, Turnbull had the opportunity to drop the deal once he saw President Trump was opposed to it. Considering the dubiousness of the whole thing, it would have been the sensible thing to do. Instead Turnbull prioritized dumping Muslim illegal migrants on America over his relationship with the United States.
Instead of viewing America as an ally, Turnbull saw it as a dumping ground for people even he didn't want.
Is anyone really surprised that this infuriated Trump? Forget all the pious lectures about how close allies are treated. Turnbull was the one abusing the alliance. It wasn't Trump making unreasonable demands of Australia. It was Turnbull insisting that Trump ignore the wishes of his own voters while creating a national security problem for America.
According to the Washington Post, during his call with Turnbull, Trump said the Obama administration’s agreement to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center was “the worst deal ever,” and accused the country of seeking to send the “next Boston bombers” to the United States. Trump abruptly ended the call with the leader of one of the United States’ closest allies before its scheduled conclusion, the Post reported.
After reports about the phone call started to circulate, Trump took to Twitter to call the Obama administration’s deal “dumb.”
Andrew Bolt at Australia's Herald Sun has some common sense commentary.
Turnbull thought he could outsmart Donald Trump and trap him into taking 1250 of our boat people.
Huge mistake, and now he’s been humiliated.
There is no surprise that an angry Trump attacked Turnbull in their call at the weekend and hung up halfway through, after just 25 minutes.
What did Turnbull expect?
This political disaster was always on the cards from the moment Turnbull announced, on November 13 last year, that he’d signed a deal with then US president Barack Obama to take our boat people detained on Nauru and Manus Island.
That was very dumb because just five days earlier Trump had been unexpectedly elected the next president, having campaigned hard against exactly this kind of thing.
Trump is angry. And he's right to be angry.