My guess is that the U.S. hasn’t made a decision or formal reply yet. Why I think that is in the article:
“A Spanish official quoted by AP news agency said Madrid had assumed Mr Obama would be attending the event.”
Key word is assumed. If they did indeed invite the Doofus, Spain apparently hasn’t heard one way or the other, so they assumed.
And the U.S. can say ‘there are no plans to attend’ because there’s no decision yet.
The Europeans are pole vaulting over mouse turds at this point. JMHO.
That's funny right there! I don't care who ya are! That's funny!
FMCDH(BITS)
The chocolate-makers are easily wee weed-up.