Patricia Wilson

BRISBANE — Australia, the land of Oz, the unique kangaroo, the magical koala and some of the most venomous snakes in the world, has a new distinction: Its leader has been insulted by Donald Trump.

The intemperate phone call between the U.S president and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull might have been predictable given the subject matter, the timing and Trump's volatility.

An Australian-U.S. refugee deal, negotiated by the Obama administration and hated by the new president. A phone call the day after Trump's executive order banning entry to citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries. And an Australian prime minister calmly pressing his closest ally for a commitment to that deal.

What happens next counts more than insults and a hang-up. Will Trump eventually ditch the refugee agreement, humiliating Turnbull politically and thumbing his nose at Australia, an ally that willingly sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan even though the Twin Towers were 10,000 miles from Sydney? Will a U.S. snub push Australia closer to China? Is it time, anyway, for Australia to cut its umbilical cord with America?

The very tone of the call itself must have been an unpleasant surprise for Turnbull, a 1-percenter, self-made multimillionaire who honed his manners as a scholarship student at a private school in Sydney and Oxford in England. Impeccably turned out, well spoken, stiffly polite and not hugely popular with voters, Turnbull stuck doggedly to the diplomatic formula of "frank and candid" despite calls for him to stand up to Trump's bullying.

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Has there ever been such a cantankerous conversation between a U.S. president and an Australian prime minister? Not one that's on record, although Gough Whitlam and Richard Nixon might have exchanged a few choice words when the prime minister pulled the last Australian troops from Vietnam in 1972.

Assurances from White House officials that the "dumb deal" is still alive and under review, as well as Trump's own belated declaration of "love" for Australia, reeks of Donald Regan's "shovel brigade."

As President Reagan's chief of staff, Regan once described his job thusly: "Some of us are like a shovel brigade that follow a parade down Main Street cleaning up."

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Australians generally are a hardy bunch and not much bothered by elephant dung. But all this is not amusing to an Australian who, until recently, happily called Washington home for more than three decades and covered U.S. presidents from Reagan to Barack Obama.

Republican or Democratic, it did not matter. The office was bigger than the man. Egos were mostly kept in check, at least publicly. Presidents were polite, almost always civil, constantly respectful of others, whether or not their politics were in sync. Some were smarter than others. Some were more personable than others. Some were better politicians than others. Some started wars. Some ended wars. Some changed America. Some changed the world.

But none lived in a White House where "alternative facts" rule, allies are dispensable and Twitter is king. Trump's very own Land of Oz.

Patricia Wilson, who covered U.S. campaigns and administrations from Reagan to Obama as a Washington-based correspondent for Reuters, recently returned to her homeland.

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