Fifty seconds on your feet, in a crowded space, hands in pockets. That is the clip prime minister Hristijan Mickoski posted from New York as proof of a conversation with US secretary of state Marco Rubio. The question that split opinion is not whether the conversation happened - it did. The question is what you call the thing that happened.

The government described it as a significant confirmation of the strategic partnership between Macedonia and the US and of continued political dialogue. On Facebook, Mickoski wrote that in a time of serious geopolitical challenges, strong partnerships and open dialogue with strategic allies carry particular weight, and that Macedonia represents its interests "with dignity and principle".

The published video, however, shows no official room, no negotiating table, no state flags, no protocol arrangement. The space looks more like a hotel corridor than a venue for a bilateral meeting. Ambassador Zoran Popov appears in the background, in sportswear.

Two versions of the same clip

SDSM responded with the phrase "corridor diplomacy", arguing that meetings are held in an office or a conference room, with an agenda and minutes. They also criticised the prime minister's clothing, the size of the delegation and the absence of any official statement or signed document. The governing party shot back that the only conversation Rubio has had so far is precisely the one with Mickoski and with minister Timčo Mucunski.

The formal part arrived the next day: an official meeting with deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau in New York, with the assistant secretary of state for Europe also present. That meeting has protocol, it has a listed composition and it has a statement. What is being argued about is not that meeting, but why the earlier, informal contact was presented with a weight it does not carry.

That is the distinction worth holding on to. A brief exchange of words with a secretary of state is not nothing - it is contact plenty of states would want. But packaged as a top-level diplomatic event with not one piece of protocol detail attached, it achieves the opposite of what was intended: instead of sounding strong, it sounds like it was supposed to sound strong.

In the same period, the State Department notified Congress that it was redirecting 52 million dollars of foreign military financing away from Slovakia, Macedonia, Tunisia and Iraq towards Panama, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Funding for those four countries has not been cut entirely, but the portion leaving is clearly being reassigned - to a region Washington is now prioritising. That is a figure you can measure and verify. Fifty seconds in a corridor is not.