MARK RILEY: Anthony Albanese wasn’t the only one let down by Donald Trump’s G7 disappearing act

Flying home after doing a bunk from the G7 this week, Donald Trump told the travelling White House press corps on board Air Force One that he doesn’t like using phones.

He made this rather curious declaration in explaining why he hadn’t called the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, to apologise for abruptly cancelling their planned one-on-one meeting.

As he landed in Washington DC a little over an hour later, news broke of the latest Trump International business venture.

Having delivered the world Trump casinos, TrumpCoin, Trump steaks, even Donald Trump the Fragrance (just what does snake oil smell like exactly?), he was now offering Trump Mobile.

Yes, the man declaring he didn’t like phones was at that very same time launching his own mobile phone company.

And that says everything about Donald Trump.

The only thing predictable about him is his unpredictability.

He does things he says he won’t and won’t do things he says he will.

He loves things until he hates them.

That includes people.

He also has a tendency to say he is coming when he is actually going.

Sometimes he says he’s both coming and going and then does neither.

This was the maddening reality Australian officials faced as they attempted to organise a meeting with Trump for Anthony Albanese on the sidelines of the G7 this week.

In the end, he came and went.

In his wake were several disappointed leaders whose promised presidential face time had been pulled. Among them: Albanese, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and India’s Narendra Modi.

As it happened, Claudia Sheinbaum did get a call from Trump. It came in the hours after he had explained to the travelling media why he wouldn’t be making it.

At the time of writing, Albanese still hadn’t got his. Not that he’s hanging out for it.

Fair enough. Trump is just doing what Trump does.

This G7 meeting was really G6 plus Trump from the outset.

The US President blew in wearing his white MAGA truckers’ hat and proceeded to drive straight over the organisation at great speed.

He accused the leaders of causing the war in Ukraine by expelling Russia’s Vladimir Putin for marching his troops into Crimea.

He said it would have been better to have left him in the room so they could influence him. Trump probably doesn’t have the self-awareness to realise that is exactly what the other G7 leaders are doing with him now.

He is the outlier. They are, in cricket terms, bowling around him while still allowing him to feel like he is captain of the team.

He sucked the oxygen out of every meeting room he entered in Canada, making it all about him. In Donald Trump’s mind, he doesn’t join groups he leads them.

And having watered down the European leaders’ draft statement on Israel and Iran he turned on his heels and absconded, leaving Albanese and the other leaders in the lurch and at the mercy of their travelling media packs.

So, now Albanese says he is “considering” an invitation to go to The Hague next week for Nato.

He better consider this carefully.

He wants to be there so Australia has a seat at the table as the world considers the drastic implications of conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.

And as Trump further isolates America from the traditional international diplomatic architecture, it is even more important now for Albanese to build strong relations with the new global power structures emerging in Europe.

Together, Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Fredrich Merz and the other European Nato leaders are becoming more important to Australia and more powerful and dependable than Trump.

And if Albanese does go, the entire focus domestically will again be on whether or not he meets Trump.

Travelling three-quarters of the way around the world to face the possibility of being stood up a second time is an enormous risk.

We know how that movie ends. We saw it this week.

In those circumstances, senior sources tell me Albanese is unlikely to go.

It is a big decision. So big that Albanese might like to phone a friend. And if he does, Donald Trump has a new mobile to sell him.