Trump picks up the phone, sets off diplomatic chaos Diplomats say Trump’s combative calls with Mexico and Australia are reverberating around the world.

Donald Trump is sowing diplomatic chaos around the world just two weeks into his presidency, as he feuds with world leaders and defends an unpredictable style that has alarmed friends and foes alike.

Foreign diplomats and State Department officials expressed shock Thursday over reports that Trump lashed out in phone calls at the leaders of Mexico and Australia, whose prime minister, a close U.S. ally with whom presidents rarely argue, Trump reportedly hung up on after a surprise haranguing.


At the same time, Trump pleased Republicans, Israeli officials and some powerful Arab leaders by pressing a tough line on Iran, upon which Trump is reportedly set to impose new sanctions as early as Friday. A top Iranian official on Thursday mocked an “inexperienced” Trump for his “groundless ranting.”

Trump tried to tamp down the uproar over his contentious phone calls with foreign leaders on Thursday, spinning them as the actions of a strong leader reasserting America abroad.

“When you hear about the tough phone calls I’m having, don’t worry about it,” Trump said during his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. “We have to be tough. ... We’re taken advantage of by every nation in the world, virtually. It’s not going to happen anymore.”

“The world is in trouble, but we’re going to straighten it out, OK? That’s what I do, I fix things,” Trump added.

Diplomats and experts say Trump’s recent behavior likely has some foreign governments recalculating their approach to phone calls and meetings with the U.S. president.

Diplomats said the recent episodes will be studied closely in Tokyo and Jerusalem, ahead of planned visits to the White House by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on Feb. 10, and by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, scheduled for Feb. 15.

Those leaders and others now making plans to visit Trump are expected to focus on the experience of British Prime Minister Theresa May, who struck a chummy tone with Trump during her White House visit last week — only to find herself facing mass protests and political outrage at home this week after Trump’s controversial executive orders restricting travel into the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries which the White House says pose security concerns.

Some diplomats are already thinking ahead to Trump’s first trips abroad, imagining with trepidation how Trump might conduct himself among several heads of state at a May G-7 summit in Sicily and a July G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.

“He will have to be much more statesmanlike than he has been,” the Western diplomat said.

Some Middle East observers were also puzzled that Trump met Jordan’s King Abdullah at Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast — but did not receive the stalwart Arab ally in the Oval Office. (Abdullah had lunch with Vice President Mike Pence at the White House on Monday.)

Trump allies believe that most Americans care little about the diplomatic protocol that Trump is smashing, to the alarm of Washington’s foreign policy establishment and the U.S. State Department’s diplomatic corps.

“Look, anybody who just discovered that President Donald J. Trump is a resolute, decisive man who doesn't mince his words and who’s putting America and her allies and her people and her interest first is waking up, I think, out of a cave from the last two years,” Trump’s counselor, Kellyanne Conway, told Fox News on Thursday.

Concern over Trump’s discourse with foreign leaders spiked on Wednesday after The Associated Press reported that Trump had threatened on a call with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to send American troops to stop “bad hombres down there” if the Mexican military fails to do so itself. Peña Nieto was expected to visit Washington this week — but canceled his trip after Trump challenged him to commit to paying for Trump’s planned border wall.

And during a Saturday call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump lost his temper after learning of a pre-existing agreement under which the U.S. is committed to take in more than 1,000 refugees, which Trump called “the worst deal ever,” according to The Washington Post. The call was expected to last an hour but it reportedly ended abruptly after 25 minutes.

The refugee deal was struck with Canberra under former President Barack Obama, and Trump’s response may cause U.S. allies to wonder what other Obama-era commitments he might not honor.

Amid the dueling with allies, Trump has rattled a saber at a top U.S. rival: Iran.

At Wednesday’s White House briefing, Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, declared that Tehran was “on notice” after a recent ballistic missile test, and for its interventions in other Middle Eastern countries like Yemen and Lebanon.

Trump followed up with menacing tweets aimed at the country. “Iran has been formally PUT ON NOTICE for firing a ballistic missile. Should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them!” Trump wrote Thursday morning.

In a tweet late Wednesday night, Trump wrote that Iran has been “rapidly taking over more and more of Iraq.” Iranian-backed militias have played an important role in fighting the Islamic State in Iraq; it is unclear whether Trump will try to change that.

Tehran showed no early sign of backing down. On Thursday, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader, told reporters that his country “will continue its missile activities forcefully.” Velayati also mocked Trump for making “empty threats,” adding: “This is not the first time that an inexperienced person has threatened Iran.”

Trump’s confrontation with Iran comes after a period during which Obama conducted months of intensive diplomacy with Tehran, culminating in the July 2015 nuclear deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

Critics of the nuclear deal, including oil-rich Sunni Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, said Obama had not done enough to restrain Shiite Iran’s behavior in the region.

After threatening as a candidate to “tear up” the nuclear deal, Trump and his top foreign policy officials have recently indicated that they would seek to rigorously enforce it. Several U.S. allies oppose undoing the deal, struck between Iran and five other countries, which Trump cannot unilaterally negate.

On Wednesday, in a sign of the goodwill toward Trump among those Gulf Arab leaders, the UAE’s foreign minister, Abdullah bin-Zayed al-Nayhan, broke with many Muslim government officials and defended Trump’s recent travel ban.

“[T]his decision is not directed at a certain religion,” he said of the ban, which did not include the UAE or Saudi Arabia.

But it was Trump’s clash with Turnbull, whose country is one of America’s friendliest allies that dominated the conversation in Washington on Thursday.

Trump faced biting criticism not only from Democrats who called him unstatesmanlike, but from some Republicans as well. Arizona Sen. John McCain telephoned Australia’s ambassador to the U.S. on Thursday to affirm his “unwavering support for the U.S.-Australia alliance.”

McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, condemned Trump’s “unnecessary” and “harmful” treatment of Australia during a gaggle with reporters.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer described the conversation between Trump and Turnbull as “very cordial,” adding that the president has “tremendous respect” for his counterpart. Spicer added that Trump was “unbelievably disappointed” by the Obama-era agreement about refugees.

“But at the same time, he has had very respectful conversations with many leaders, just in the last week or so — 10 or more world leaders. He is trying to reach out to them, talk to the diplomatic corps, certainly. But he also makes very clear what his position is on any number of issues around the globe,” Spicer said.

At his weekly news conference, House Speaker Paul Ryan called Australia “a very essential ally,” adding that world leaders should “[be] able to have candid and private conversations with one another.”

According to Spicer, Trump is “extremely, extremely upset with” the Obama administration’s agreement. “He does not like it, but out of respect for [Turnbull], he’s going to allow that process, continue to study and allow it to move forward under the conditions that had been set that there will be extreme vetting on every single one of those individuals,” he added.

“If he doesn’t like the deal [with Australia], that’s his right,” Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine told CNN. “But to have a contentious conversation and name-call a country or the prime minister of a country that’s one of our greatest allies in Asia, is foolish. To suggest to the president of Mexico we may have to send U.S. troops into Mexico is foolish. And some of the statements that the president is making about Iraq and Iran are foolish. He’s doing kind of amateur-hour stuff on matters of significant national importance.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), meanwhile, warned “that diplomacy is not something you engage in with a tweet or with one phone call.”

Madeline Conway and Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.