2017-04-18
Millions of lives on the Korean Peninsula now depend on United States President Donald Trump acting in an informed, considered and rational manner in the face of provocation, the Australian Greens said today.
"A guy that loses his mind at a tweet is facing off with a guy who called a movie an act of war, and they're doing it with nuclear weapons," acting Australian Greens Leader Senator Scott Ludlam said today.
"The Australian government’s insistence that everything is fine, it's all business as usual with this President, could see us dragged into a conflict born of nothing more than a clash of egos between demagogues.
"How reckless does Trump have to get before the Turnbull government accepts the fact that it's in our best interests to urgently unshackle ourselves from the US?
"When the Trump administration says that in order to respond to North Korea's nuclear ambitions everything is on the table, we are left to hope that Trump himself isn't sitting there, and skilled diplomats and peacemakers are instead.
"23 years ago the US examined a military option to disrupt North Korea's nuclear fuel reprocessing plans. Even conservative estimates of the impact of a response from Pyongyang put the death toll over a million. We're now left just hoping Donald Trump will heed that warning.
"Prime Minister Turnbull must make it unequivocally clear; we must not allow Washington to drag us into yet another conflict, we need to stand clear of Donald Trump," Senator Ludlam concluded.
Media Release Foreign Affairs