From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Wednesday, March twelve, twenty twenty five. The plot thickens in a string of anti Semitic attacks. Now police say a former high ranking bikey boss directed hired criminals to firebomb a business. That's after authorities revealed their theory a caravan packed with explosives was a criminal conjob, multiple alleged offenders and now before the courts. And you can follow the twists and turns in this story at the Australian
dot com. A U Ukraine has accepted a thirty day ceasefire proposal orchestrated by the United States, with negotiations to commence immediately with Russia. Now, the Americans say the ball is in Vladimir Putin's court to accept the truce or not. Just hours to go until the United States punishing tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium kick in as the White House rejects Australia's please for an exemption. In the middle of all that, Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull have been
going at each other's throats. What's that all about and what does it do to our economy and our politics. If you go scrolling through Donald J. Trump's social media feed on his preferred platform, Truth Social, you'll step into the president's very public, private world. We've used an AI voice generator to bring some of the president's thoughts to life. There are opinions.
Nobody has been tougher on Russia than Donald Trump.
Memes, grabs of Trump out and about.
And We're going to become so rich. You're not going to know where to spend all that money. I'm telling you, you just watch.
And then a vicious attack on a former Australian Prime minister.
Malcolm Turnbull, the former Prime minige st of Australia, who was always leading that wonderful country from behind, never understood what was going on in China, nor did he have the capacity to do so.
Oh yeah, we're here.
I always thought he was a weak and ineffective leader, and obviously Australians agreed with me.
Donald Trump was responding to an interview with Bloomberg where Malcolm Turnbull, as he does quite a lot these days, gave his frank assessment of the President, in this case on his desire for retaliatory tariffs on America's trading partners.
So you're seeing a much more undiluted Donald Trump second time around. People are very pessimistic about the consequence of his policies. I and if this triggers a global wave of protectionism around the world, that's clearly going to be bad for business everywhere. Trump seems to have a view that America can prosper at the expense of everybody else. But that's not going to work, that's.
Right, And this is the bit that one suspects got the president all riled up.
I think China will take advantage, massive advantage of Trump. But my prediction will be that presidency will aim to be the exact opposite of Trump. Where Trump is chaotic, he will be consistent. Where Trump is rude and abusive, he'll be respectful. Where Trump is erratic, he will be consistent. And what that will do is build trust with countries. And there will be many countries who will looking at China on the one hand and Trump on the other will find China a more attractive partner.
Jeff Chambers is The Australian's chief political correspondent. Jeff, the thing that seems to have got Donald Trump annoyed is an interview with Bloomberg where Malcolm Turnbull talked about Trump's tariff's policy, but then also said that President Shijinping of China would really take massive advantage of Trump, would out negotiate him. What is your sense of whether it was a good idea for Malcolm Turnbull to get involved in this conversation with Trump.
I don't think that Malcolm Turnbull cares much for whether things are good ideas or not. He loves the limelight, and we've got prime ministers that step away from the public sphere and in recent times, whether it's Malcolm Turnbull, Kevin rad or Paul Keating, that you're seeing prime ministers very much injecting themselves into public debate when it suits them. Malcolm Turnble would have been fully aware that Thursday, Australian time is the start of these proposed tariffs from the
Trump administration which will capture Australian steel and aluminium. So days out from that he goes on Bloomberg, which is a very heavily watched, very reputable platform, and I think he would have been over the moon that Donald Trump has given him a shout out. If you're the abeneasy government, not so great for them. But in what he said, a lot of people around the world, outside of America and outside of the marga hardcore people wouldn't disagree with
some of his observations, but he was being provocative. But no doubt he will now use that for a long period of time throughout this term as a guy that can get under the skin of the US President.
Back in the wild early days of the first Trump presidency, Malcolm Turnbull, as Prime Minister, got the President on the phone and asked him to honor a deal made by his predecessor to consider taking up to two thousand refugees who'd come to Australia by boat. The transcript of that January twenty seventeen corps was later obtained by The Washington Post and published in full, and it reveals a quite remarkable interplay between the two men. It starts with Trump
fuming about the deal. We've used voice actors and that AI voice generator to bring some snippets of the conversation to life.
It sends such a bad signal. You have no idea. It is such a bad thing.
Can you hear me out, mister president?
Yeah, go ahead, Yes, the agreement does not require you to take two thousand people. It does not require you to take any It requires in return for us to do a number of things for the United States.
This is a big deal. I think we should respect deals.
Who made the deal Obama, Yes, but let.
Me describe what it is. I think it is quite consistent. I think you can comply with it. It is absolutely consistent with your executive order. So please just.
Hear me out.
Trump wants to know why haven't you let them out? Why have you not let them into your society?
Okay, I will explain why. It is not because they are bad people. It is because in order to stop people smugglers, we had to deprive them of the product. So we said, if you try to come to Australia by boat, even if we I think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Nobel Prize winning genius, we will not let you in because the problem with the people.
That is a good idea. We should do that too. You are worse than I am.
By the end of the call, Trump is agreeing, still reluctantly, to stick with Obama's deal.
I am going to get killed on this thing.
You will not, Malcolm.
I have had it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.
Thank you for your commitment. It is very important to us.
It is important to you, and it is embarrassing to me. It is an embarrassment to me. But at least I got you off the hook. So you put me back on the hook.
You can count on me. I will be there again and again, I hope.
So Okay, thank you, Malcolm.
I think this time around it's a different circumstance. Yes, there was that famous conversation between Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull just after Trump had come to the White House and inherited the refugee deal swap that Barak Obama had agreed to. But let's not be under the illusion that Malcolm Turbul subsequent to that did not do what most prime ministers do, and that is ingratiate themselves to Donald Trump.
That's typically the dynamic that occurs. And once he got that exemption, then they talked up just how close they were and how alike they were. And for Malcolm Turble to now suggest that somehow he always took on the big bully. You know, when you're in office and you're in power, it's a very different scenario. The fact is that Malcolm Turbull was a world leader in taking on China.
He banned Huawei, he introduced very tough foreign interference laws, and he scrapped an extradition treaty with China, and that really was the start of those deteriorating relations with Beijing. And subsequent to that, all our five ICE partners, including the US, then realized that imminent threat that China pose on that front. You have to give Malcolm Turnble credit. Yes, Peter Dutton and others were in key roles and some security heads were really pushing that. But for the record,
it was under the Turnbull government. And then obviously the remark that Donald Trump's saying that Australians booted Malcolm Turnbull out of office.
So now are we back where we started with this very hostile exchange.
Look in a way, it's often another realm. There was a lot of pessimism in the Alberzi government ranks. So we saw Penny Wong, Richard marleson, most recently Jim Chalmers head to Washington to make the case. Kevin Rudters also hosted a couple of times the US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, who was an influential player in all this, and on all occasions they've come away empty handed and they've basically
been told this is the US president's decision. While steel and our uminium they're not really massive in terms of our exports to the US, and Blue Scope, who operate out of Kembler have got a lot of big investments over there in the States. The government really want to make clear that they are taking it seriously and they're
still hopeful. But there's other concerns in the government post election that whether it's copper, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, that this tariff war or this tariff imposition could broaden to other areas that are much more important to our economy. So if you mishandle it, or you go too far and through a campaign, Donald Trump puts a social media post out and says, I'm not so sure about UCUS. It's got the potential if you mishandle it to escalate very quickly.
And we've seen this with other world leaders that you've got to play the game with Trump.
Jeff Chambers is the Australian's chief political correspondent. You can follow developments live at the Australian dot com dot au