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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during House of Representatives question time at Parliament House on February 11, 2016 in Canberra, Australia.
The bilateral meeting will follow a speech by Trump aboard the USS Intrepid, an aircraft carrier turned museum on the Hudson River, to mark the anniversary of the Coral Sea battle, during which U.S. and Australian troops fought the Japanese, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
Australia is one of Washington’s staunchest allies and troops from the two nations have fought alongside each other in all major conflicts, most recently Iraq and Afghanistan.
Late last year, Obama agreed to resettle up to 1,250 asylum seekers held in Australian-funded camps in the South Pacific, in exchange for Australia resettling refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
But in February, Trump criticised the deal, accusing Australia of trying to export the “ext Boston bombers” under the agreement, the Washington Post reported.
Eager to repair the relationship, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence last week visited Australia and confirmed Washington would begrudgingly honor the refugee deal with Canberra, only out of respect for the alliance between the two countries.
