Hillary Clinton took a withering swipe at Donald Trump’s impromptu visit to Mexico on Wednesday, during an address to the American Legion convention in Cincinnati that was nonetheless once again upstaged by her opponent’s unpredictable antics.

“You can’t make up for a year of insults by dropping in on our neighbours for a few hours and flying home again,” insisted the former secretary of state, famed for clocking up hundreds of thousands of diplomatic air miles. “That’s not how it works.”

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Instead Clinton stressed her experience in office and expertise on foreign affairs, in a speech that leaned heavily on the same patriotic tone she adopted at the Democratic convention last month.

“No other country in the world has alliances like ours … because generations of American troops fought and died to secure those bonds,” said Clinton. “You don’t build a coalition by insulting our friends or acting like a loose cannon. It’s more than a photo op. It takes consistency and reliability.”

But her address in Ohio was met with a subdued reaction among the audience of military veterans, who seem more likely to warm to Trump’s scheduled speech here on Thursday.

“It was a fairly muted response,” agreed Ken Dalecki, a 31-year member of the Legion, and a delegate from Washington. “She didn’t exactly get a standing ovation.”

Clinton seemed relaxed in the face of the tough crowd, however, content to speak mainly to a large television presence covering one of the few big events she has held in the relatively quiet days leading up to Labor Day on Monday.

“I know some of you have never voted for a Democrat before; I get that,” she acknowledged in her speech. “My dad was a Rockefeller Republican, but I learned at our dinner table that we can disagree without being disagreeable,” she added, to the first of only a few spirited rounds of applause.

Billed by the campaign as a speech about America’s belief in itself as “an exceptional nation”, there was also repeated appeals to the bipartisan traditions of national security.

“I am not going to talk a lot about politics today but I do want to say this: whoever America elects this fall is not just going to be our next president, they are going to be our next commander-in-chief,” said Clinton.

But despite a few well-received references to veterans’ issues, it was clear that the main target for this patriotic speech was Donald Trump – a man Clinton believes lacks the “experience and temperament” to be commander-in-chief.

Whether one of the nation’s largest organisations of military veterans agrees, could be tested by a likely warmer welcome for Trump on Thursday.