{"id":71974,"date":"2022-04-19T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T20:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=71974"},"modified":"2022-04-18T17:32:57","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T07:32:57","slug":"canberras-man-in-washington-for-trumpageddon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/canberras-man-in-washington-for-trumpageddon\/","title":{"rendered":"Canberra\u2019s man in Washington for \u2018Trumpageddon\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

When an Australian jumps out of a taxi and prepares to make a dash across New York\u2019s 5th Avenue, the habit of a lifetime is to look the wrong way for the traffic.<\/p>\n

Australia drives on the left; America drives on the right. It\u2019s a simple metaphor for the many different ways of looking and moving of the two nations.<\/p>\n

Rushing for a late-night drink in the city that never sleeps, Australia\u2019s ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, stopped his taxi by Central Park and dashed across the avenue, checking in the Oz direction.<\/p>\n

That \u2018near-fatal error,\u2019 Hockey observes, was \u2018like so many who think they understand America\u2019.<\/p>\n

Luck and quick reactions spared the ambassador an obituary about a culture-clash smash on 5th Avenue. Thus, last Wednesday, Hockey could release Diplomatic<\/em><\/a>, a memoir of his time as our man in Washington from January 2016 to January 2020.<\/p>\n

He starts with the big truth that shapes the life of any Oz representative in Washington: history has \u2018made America fundamentally different from us\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018Many demons,\u2019 Hockey writes, lurk \u2018in the American psyche\u2019. And that\u2019s where the discussion of \u2018inherent differences\u2019 ends. The Hockey emphasis is on the \u2018long and friendly history\u2019 between the US and Australia:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bit like a successful marriage: we like each other a lot, we are not identical and do not always agree; however, we have shared our lives over many years. We are loyal to each other and we really enjoy each other\u2019s company.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hear the voice of the happy warrior who is Joe Hockey. Even after 19 years as a federal MP, culminating as treasurer from 2013 to 2015, Hockey departed Canberra with few enemies. His broad smile served him well in politics as it did in diplomacy. In both games, half a deal usually beats a duel.<\/p>\n

Hockey went to Washington because his dream to become prime minister was dead. His luck deserted him in the series of political car crashes that marked the Liberal Party death struggle between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.<\/p>\n

The chapter headed \u2018Goodbye, Canberra\u2019 has a subhead reference to \u2018politics at its worst\u2019, and the smile dims as he lets fly: \u2018Within our [Abbott] government, there were too many who were more focused on polls than policy. The sickness of populism afflicts the weak. That didn\u2019t stop them from engaging in duplicity and deceit.\u2019<\/p>\n

Ah, politics is a treacherous trade played for the highest stakes. Who knew? Lucky only volunteers enter.<\/p>\n

The happy warrior notes that for 17 of his 19 years in the pit he was fortunate to be in the front line (on the government or opposition front bench) and, despite the nastiness, he enjoyed it immensely.<\/p>\n

From Washington, Hockey did most of his work with Canberra on a secure phone, talking to the prime minister, ministers and department heads. Others in Australia\u2019s embassy wrote the \u2018cables\u2019 that are a central expression of the existence of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (acting as circulatory system and thinking process).<\/p>\n

Hockey\u2019s Canberra understandings (\u2018the sharpest knives always come from your own side\u2019) explain that phone preference\u2014\u2018given my past life as a politician, if I wrote any cables, I couldn\u2019t rely on all the people reading them not to share them with the media\u2019. A well-directed leak can sink you. As Hockey notes, Britain\u2019s ambassador to the US had to resign in 2019 after a London leak of his cables claiming that President Donald Trump \u2018radiates insecurity\u2019 and describing the White House as \u2018clumsy and inept\u2019.<\/p>\n

Hitting Washington at the start of 2016 for the final year of Barack Obama\u2019s administration, Hockey witnessed the close but not familiar relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Turnbull: \u2018Both men had a healthy love of detailed intellectual discourse\u2014especially their own. Like two history professors discussing dialectical materialism, their conversation was eye-watering but hardly warm.\u2019<\/p>\n

Then comes the chapter headed simply \u2018Trumpageddon\u2019. On the Hockey telling, he read the signs of the presidential campaign and started building bridges to Trump, while Canberra was in denial till the votes came in.<\/p>\n

Hockey says Trump \u2018was one of the most authentic political candidates I had ever seen\u2019, even though he was \u2018confronting, rude and naive\u2019. When he later spent time with the president, even on the golf course, The Donald was constantly questioning, churning through ideas and trying out lines:<\/p>\n

Most political leaders are narcissists. They not only need to be the centre of attention, they often think they are the smartest people in the room. They also have fantastic egos. They believe they can charm the leg off a billiard table with their quick wit and nice smile. Enter Donald Trump.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hockey describes a White House that lacked leadership and leaked like a sieve, with everyone competing for Trump\u2019s attention and approval. The leaking meant the Washington Post <\/em>quickly got the transcript<\/a> of the president\u2019s notorious<\/a> phone conversation\u00a0with Turnbull on 28 January 2017, a week after the inauguration.<\/p>\n

Turnbull needed Trump to commit<\/a> to the deal struck with Obama for the US to accept refugees Australia had exiled to Nauru and Manus Island. Trump berated Turnbull over a \u2018dumb deal\u2019 and the \u2018worst deal ever\u2019.<\/p>\n

When Hockey answered the phone and spoke with Turnbull \u2018straight after the conversation, he was shaken. His voice was quivering and he was clearly upset.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hockey says the Trump\u2013Turnbull call was \u2018disastrous\u2019. The ambassador put on his politician\u2019s helmet and marched into the White House to argue the dangers of a \u2018massive deterioration in the alliance\u2019. The public crisis\u2014\u2018the madness that followed the leaked phone call\u2019\u2014offered a chance to lock in the deal. The strong foundations of the alliance, Hockey says, \u2018can\u2019t be undermined by the whims of a leader\u2019.<\/p>\n

Thinking like a politician, Hockey launched a campaign with a strong story: \u2018100 years of Mateship\u2019, marking the two countries\u2019 shared military history. \u2018Australia is the only country in the world to fight side by side with the United States in every major conflict\u2019 since the Battle of Hamel on the Western Front in 1918.<\/p>\n

Mateship is a complicated concept for Australia, and the campaign got plenty of criticism<\/a> in Oz for being blokey<\/a> or subservient<\/a>. For America, though, mateship struck a chord and Hockey says it became a \u2018successful touchstone\u2019. Certainly, mateship seemed to work with The Donald. \u2018After the disastrous first phone call,\u2019 Hockey writes, \u2018Australia went on to have a series of political and economic wins during the Trump presidency.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hockey exalts that the mates theme was embraced by President Joe Biden<\/a> in his address marking the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS alliance: \u2018Through the years, Australians and Americans have built an unsurpassed partnership and an easy mateship grounded on shared values and shared vision.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Hockey prediction is that Biden will not run for a second term as president. And he links that with a prediction that Trump, too, is unlikely to run: \u2018Apart from his age [Trump will be 78 in 2024], and the likelihood the Democrats will seek to legally bar him from running, I don\u2019t think he could bear the prospect of losing again.\u2019<\/p>\n

With questions in the air about both Trump and Biden, Hockey judges, \u2018America hasn\u2019t been in such a precarious position for a long time.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When an Australian jumps out of a taxi and prepares to make a dash across New York\u2019s 5th Avenue, the habit of a lifetime is to look the wrong way for the traffic. Australia drives …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":71988,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,17,1428,1584,31],"class_list":["post-71974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-alliance-2","tag-australia","tag-donald-trump","tag-joe-hockey","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCanberra\u2019s man in Washington for \u2018Trumpageddon\u2019 | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/canberras-man-in-washington-for-trumpageddon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Canberra\u2019s man in Washington for \u2018Trumpageddon\u2019 | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When an Australian jumps out of a taxi and prepares to make a dash across New York\u2019s 5th Avenue, the habit of a lifetime is to look the wrong way for the traffic. 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