“That’s not correct, Mr President, this table demonstrates the length and scale of the US trade surplus over Australia.” With these words, I handed over one of five big, simple graphs we had taken to the dinner.

The evening was in an Osaka hotel held on the margins of a G20 leaders meeting between then prime minister Scott Morrison, fresh off his 2019 election victory, and president Donald Trump in the second half of his first term. The president had just claimed that Australia had a trade surplus over the US, which was a misunderstanding we were eager to correct.