Trump “disappointed” at refugee deal with Australia: White House

The Washington Post report received nearly blanket coverage in Australian media and was widely seen as embarrassing for Turnbull, whose conservative Liberal-National coalition has only a razor-thin majority after an inconclusive election previous year.

He also said Australia was asking to submit them to the USA for refugee screening and if the refugees did not pass the screening process, they would not come.

Trump’s comments follow a Washington Post report that detailed a phone call between him and Turnbull on Saturday, which Trump described as the “this was the worst call by far“, compared to his interactions with four other leaders on the same day.

During the call, Mr Trump labelled the resettlement plan “the worst deal ever”, the paper reported.

Instead of the hour-long conversation that was scheduled, Trump’s first conversation as president with Turnbull ended after just 25 minutes.

“It’s better that these things – these conversations – are conducted candidly, frankly, privately”, Turnbull told reporters. “What is usually a very warm relationship has suddenly cooled”. In a late night tweet, Trump slammed it as a “dumb deal”. Trump’s administration also said “extreme vetting” would be used to check refugee cases.

Turnbull’s request came a day after Trump had signed an executive order temporarily banning all refugees from entering the United States as a counterterrorism measure. “Then we’ve have had a shambles whereby we’ve had the U.S. president try to conduct foreign policy and diplomacy through Twitter“, he said.

“In short, Australia is one of America’s oldest friends and staunchest allies”, McCain wrote in a statement.

That was put to rest by a tweet from Trump, which said he would re-examine the “dumb deal”.

After the Post story broke, Mr Trump weighed in on Twitter, throwing the agreement into doubt.

But an Australian official close to the deal said, “It’s over”.

In a late-night Wednesday tweet, Trump slammed an Australian-U.S. refugee agreement that was brokered by Barack Obama’s administration past year, saying he would commit to study the “dumb deal”. Australia doesn’t want them, and has kept them in off-shore detention centres in Papua New Guinea.

At a White House briefing, spokesman Sean Spicer indicated the United States would agree to take the refugees, who have been languishing in island camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea, some for years.

Deplorable conditions at those sites prompted intervention from the United Nations and a pledge from the U.S. to accept about half of those refugees, provided they passed American security screening.