New Zealand prime minister, John Key, could not receive US president-elect because he was busy dealing with the aftermath of the 7.5 magnitude earthquake that struck on Monday.
According to the Guardian, Trump was calling Key as part of his first phase of reaching out to world leaders during his transition to the White House.
Trump’s office set up the call with Key in advance, but the prime minister was caught up with the fallout from the natural disaster, which has left two people dead and hundreds stranded, and missed the phone call.
“What happened was there was a bit of a discussion between my office and his office on the Saturday about a call,” he said.
“We weren’t strictly sure when the President-elect was going to ring, they said it was in the next couple of hours.”
When the call came, Key failed to see it.
“I didn’t see the call when it came in, in the hurly burly of things I didn’t notice,” he said.
“They then made contact with our foreign affairs people and and said they had tried to call and hadn’t been successful.”
Key said another call had been set up for Wednesday. He said he understood Trump was calling to express his condolences over the earthquake and to discuss US-New Zealand relations.