A Reset, of Sorts, for the United States and Australia

SYDNEY — President Donald Trump’s infamous first phone call with Australia’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was classic Trump: demanding, transactional and eager to reject established agreements.

But when the two leaders meet in Washington on Friday, that call will be treated as dead and gone.

Officials and experts argue that Trump and Turnbull have become closer over the past year — especially as the United States seeks to play a larger role in the region, countering China and North Korea.

“Strategically, we’re very aligned,” said Amy Searight, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The alliance is becoming more and more important as an anchor for regional stability.”

Even as Trump’s provocative approach to foreign affairs has rattled some of America’s traditional alliances, Australia has adapted and found points of connection.

Here’s a look at the three most important issues that are reshaping relations between Australia and the United States — and the challenges that both countries face in trying to work through them.

Both Australia and the United States published security assessments in the past few months that identified China as a long-term challenge to the world’s established order.

No issue has moved as quickly to the top of both countries’ priority lists.

China is the linchpin for dealing with North Korea; its Belt and Road initiative aims to reshape infrastructure in much of the world; and in both Australia and the United States, concerns about China’s efforts to infiltrate and manipulate democratic institutions, including universities, have intensified.

Officials from both countries are already talking about how to meet the challenge.

Australia’s new espionage bill, for example, was drafted with input from U.S. security agencies.

China is expected to become even more of a focal point now that Trump has named the next American ambassador to Australia: Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the head of the U.S. Pacific Command and a well-known critic of China’s expansion efforts in the South China Sea.

“He’s the first serious, heavy-hitting U.S. ambassadorial appointment here since Marshall Green came in 1973,” said James Curran, a history professor at the University of Sydney. “That’s a sign of how seriously Washington regards Australia and its broader Asia strategy.”

But how dangerous is China, really?

That is the question Australia, the United States and much of the world are trying to figure out. And it is not at all clear that Turnbull and Trump agree on the answer.

“Where we diverge is on how severe the threat is and how comprehensive our response needs to be,” said Ashley Townshend, a foreign policy expert at the United States Studies Center at the University of Sydney.

In Australia’s rankings of threats to its interests, terrorism still lands higher than China. In the United States, the latest national security plan puts terrorism below countering the Chinese and Russian militaries.

“The China hawks have the upper hand in Washington at the moment,” Curran said.

What officials in both Canberra and Washington are wondering is: Will Australia, which counts China as its largest trading partner, fall in line?

When Turnbull last met with Trump, in May in New York, the visit included a big economic boost to the Trump agenda: An Australian businessman, Anthony Pratt, pledged to invest $2 billion in America, primarily in Midwestern manufacturing.

Trump was thrilled enough to give Pratt a standing ovation.

It is not clear if Turnbull has anything quite as juicy in tow this time, but he is bringing a large business delegation with him and will meet with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Experts say the economic focus reflects reality — the U.S.-Australia investment relationship is worth more than $1 trillion — and a recognition of, well, personal politics.

“Trump is motivated by obvious transactional wins,” said Townshend at the United States Studies Center.

At the same time, he added, because Trump is unpopular in Australia, “it plays well for the prime minister to focus on the positive economic and trade aspects of the bilateral relationship, not just on the military.”

But will Trump reconsider his ‘go it alone’ approach?

The big ask, from Australia, Japan and other U.S. allies in the region, involves the trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Trump pulled out of the multinational agreement soon after taking office, dismissing it as a bad deal for Americans, but countries in the region have been moving on anyway and are close to final approval.

Australia has been arguing for the United States to rejoin, and some experts expect Turnbull to ask Trump, flat-out: What would it take? What concessions would get the United States back on board?

Not many experts are expecting an answer.

Separate from the Pacific trade deal, Australia, the United States, India and Japan are in the very early phases of talking about a joint regional infrastructure scheme that could become an alternative to China’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative.

One big question that will probably be asked on this trip: Would Trump embrace a building spree to compete with China — or would he see it as not sufficiently “America First”?

The issue that set off Trump in that first phone call — a deal brokered by President Barack Obama to bring refugees from Australia’s offshore detention camps to the United States, in exchange for asylum-seekers from Central America who would move to Australia — is on its way to being resolved.

More than 200 refugees held by the Australian authorities have since gone to the United States after repeated vetting, without controversy. Central Americans have been appearing in Australia as well, without much fanfare.

But what if it becomes the many?

The original deal promised that the United States would consider taking up to 1,200 refugees from Australian detention centers.

Far fewer than that have actually gone, leading to frustration in the detention camps and prompting some human rights advocates to speculate that U.S. and Australian officials are trying to keep the migration flow to a trickle, to avoid a backlash from Trump.

It’s all yet another sign of how, a year after that phone call, the relationship has evolved to account for his volatility.

“Australia has learned to deal with Trump one step at a time,” Curran said. “It’s the only way to take a president who remains a work in progress on foreign policy, and who continues to be so erratic and impulsive.”