Kevin Rudd believes the Australia-US relationship is old enough and ugly enough to overcome the Trump-Turnbull "snafu".
The former prime minister is playing down the reportedly hostile conversation between Mr Turnbull and the US president in which they discussed a refugee deal struck under the Obama administration.
"The US-Australia relationship is big enough, old enough and ugly enough to cope with this snafu," Mr Rudd told CNN on Friday from Abu Dhabi.
The alliance has been around for the better part of 100 years, he said.
"I think this snafu, as I think it will be seen, will blow over and we will get back to the fundamentals of the relationship."
Mr Rudd said Australia and America have had stacks of disagreements over the years, citing his own testy and difficult times with the Bush administration over the Iraq war.
"These things come and they go," he said.
Mr Trump's style of diplomacy is very different and much more in your face.
"I suppose the diplomacy of the rest of us has kind of got to get used to that," he said.
Mr Rudd hopes the deal to accept asylum seekers from Nauru and Manus Island is able to be resolved in the details.
"If it's not, those refugees should be accommodated back in Australia as they should have been two or three years ago," he said.
President Trump has labelled the arrangement to take asylum seekers, in exchange for Australia accepting refugees from Central America, dumb.
Despite the president's tweet, Mr Turnbull says he has received multiple assurances from Mr Trump, his press secretary and the US embassy that the deal will be progressed.
