Yes, Trump has bigger fish to fry – but after the G7 close call, this snub stings

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If you have to cancel a date with someone, you reschedule, right? That’s what a good friend would generally do. Unless you never really wanted to see them in the first place.

With US President Donald Trump’s second snub of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, it’s looking more and more like that is the case.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the UN headquarters in New York on Saturday.

The two leaders were supposed to meet in June on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada. As we know, Trump left early to deal with a situation in the Middle East, cancelling on Albanese and other leaders in the process. You would think the White House would feel obliged to make up for that now that the two men are again in the same city. Alas.

There are a few misconceptions to dispel here.

First, it is not for lack of trying. Guardian Australia’s Josh Butler recently unearthed more than 100 pages of correspondence that went into securing the G7 meeting that never happened.

While the government may have been wary of a full-blown Oval Office rendezvous, given the attendant risks, they are in no doubt that it is in Australia’s interests for the two men to meet. After all, Trump is a face-to-face, transactional kind of businessman. He wants to look you in the eye before he does a deal.

Donald Trump lands at John F Kennedy airport in New York on Monday.

We are now in the American season of fall. Which means that any day now, the Pentagon could complete its review of the AUKUS submarine agreement.

Like it or not – and many hate it – Labor has pinned Australia’s future maritime defence to this deal. So it is fundamentally in Albanese’s interest to bed it down with the man who will ultimately make the decision.

Many Australians – including a fair few readers of this masthead – question the need for a Trump meeting. They wonder why we should indulge a man whom many find to be crass, a bully, a narcissist and a villain on the world stage.

He might well be those things, but he’s also the president of the United States – the most powerful nation and biggest economy in the world, and supposedly our most important ally. The idea we should just pretend he’s not there doesn’t really fly in the real world.

Marine One carrying US President Donald Trump arrives in downtown New York on Monday.

Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Matt Thistlethwaite made a valiant attempt to spin the lack of a meeting as a “good thing” because it showed there were no trade problems the president felt compelled to address.

That’s a bit like saying we should be thankful Trump hasn’t called us into the principal’s office.

It’s true that Trump has bigger fish to fry. He is trying to resolve the war between Russia and Ukraine (albeit in uniquely Trumpian fashion), dealing with the Middle East and soliciting mega-investments in the US from every corner of the globe. His schedule is packed.

But it was not so long ago that Labor was talking up the prospects of a Trump meeting. Perhaps Albanese was the victim of another scheduling conflict, with the Charlie Kirk memorial taking Trump to Arizona on a day they could have met.

President Donald Trump embraces Erika Kirk at a memorial for conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Arizona on Monday.

Still, it feels like, whatever the circumstances, Trump should have made time for those folks Down Under by now. Snub me once, shame on you. Snub me twice ...

It’s also time to query the role played by Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd. We know that senior people in the White House have not forgotten his disparaging tweets about Trump from years ago.

Rudd works extremely hard, as all Australians would recall, and has cultivated strong relationships on both sides of the aisle. That includes senior members of the administration. But when it comes to Trump, it’s becoming more evident that maybe the times do not suit him.

Australian ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd attends a business reception in Seattle in June.

From what I have picked up in the White House, there does not seem to be any fundamental problem with Australia or the government. Indeed, Trump has spoken with Albanese by phone four times, and told me on multiple occasions that Albanese is a “good man”.

But this does not seem to be translating into a seat at the table. And that’s a problem.