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.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

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........

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