By Editor,Max Aitchison

Copyright dailymail

A senior Labor minister has suggested it’s a ‘good thing’ Anthony Albanese failed to secure a meeting with Donald Trump.

The Prime Minister has so far failed to lock in a meeting with the US President on the side lines of the United Nations summit in New York this week.

But Assistant Foreign Minister Matt Thistlethwaite suggested that the failure to land a meeting with Trump was a ‘good thing’ because it meant Australia was effectively out of mind, out of sight when it came to tough trade talks.

‘I think we should see this as a good thing,’ Thistlethwaite told Sky News on Tuesday.

‘It means that the president, who’s been meeting with world leaders to try and reach agreements on trade policy, he’s trying to do deals with other nations around tariffs and trade policy.

‘He doesn’t need to do that with Australia. We’ve got an agreement and that’s been reaffirmed by the phone call that occurred recently between the Prime Minister and the president, locking in that 10 per cent tariff, which is the lowest rate that any nation has secured.

Thistlethwaite suggested the lack of a meeting between both leaders showed that the relationship between them was ‘strong’.

‘What we’ve got here is Australia getting a good deal out of the United States, when it comes to trade policy, so there’s no need for any further follow up meeting,’ he added.

The White House confirmed overnight that Albanese was not one of the extensive world leaders Trump was due to meet this week on the side lines of the UN summit.

Instead, Trump will hold talks with the UN Secretary-General and the leaders of Ukraine, Argentina and the European Union, before joining a major multilateral session with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Türkiye, Pakistan, Egypt, the UAE, and Jordan.

The snub comes after Trump lashed out at Australia for voting to recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN.

‘The President has been very clear: he disagrees with this decision,’ Leavitt said.

‘He feels it does nothing to release the hostages, which is the primary goal right now in Gaza.

‘Frankly, he believes it rewards Hamas. He sees these decisions as more talk and not enough action from some of our friends and allies.’

The PM held seven meetings with other world leaders, including a ‘wonderful’ 40-minute chat with French President Emmanuel Macron.

‘Thank you for your leadership driving the Two-State Solution Conference today, and in the Coalition of the Willing in support of Ukraine,’ Albanese captioned a picture of the two leaders shaking hands.

He also reportedly met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, South African Prime Minister Cyril Ramaphosa, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, European Council President Antonio Costa, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly.

It comes after Albanese took the historic step, alongside other Western nation such as France and the UK, of recognising Palestinian statehood.

‘We must break this cycle of violence and build something better,’ Albanese told the General Assembly.

He added: ‘Working together, we can build a future where instead of children in Gaza dying in pain, living in fear, or being taught to hate, they can go to school and build a life in larger freedom.

‘That future depends on recognition being followed by reconstruction and reform.

‘A credible, co-operative peace plan supporting recovery in Gaza and security for Israel, establishing governance and excluding Hamas on the day after, and every day after that.

‘This is the next step we must take, and we must take it together.