Post by Admin on Feb 3, 2017 19:03:38 GMT
President Donald Trump's roller coaster ride toward diplomacy continued late Wednesday night with a tweet calling an Obama-era agreement with Australia to accept refugees a "dumb deal."
During the US President's call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Saturday, Trump objected to an agreement over the US receiving refugees, sources told CNN. All this a day after a call with Mexico's President, where a transcript showed Trump complaining about Mexico's "handling" of "tough hombres."
Sources say Trump insisted it was a very bad deal for the US to take 2,000 refugees and that one of them was going to be the next Boston bomber.
Turnbull told Trump several times the agreement was for 1,250 refugees, not 2,000. He also said Australia was asking to submit them to the US for refugee screening, and if the refugees did not pass the US screening process, they would not come.
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In a contentious phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Saturday, President Trump called an agreement negotiated with the Obama administration to resettle about 1,250 refugees held by Australia "the worst deal ever." He accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers."
The agreement
The Obama administration agreed last year to resettle the refugees from Australian-run offshore detention centers on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus in Papua New Guinea. Turnbull said the agreement, announced in November, would give priority to women, children and families. The Australian government automatically sends people in boats who attempt to reach its shores to those islands, where they are detained indefinitely, often in poor living conditions. Most of the asylum seekers are from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Trump’s executive order
Trump signed an executive order last Friday that temporarily suspends the U.S. refugee program and immigration from seven majority Muslim nations that include Iraq, but not Afghanistan. He cited security concerns about letting terrorists in the United States as the reason.
