Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to hold summit in July

trump

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will hold their first official summit in Helsinki on 16 July, the Kremlin and the White House have announced, scheduling an encounter that is certain to generate fresh controversy for the White House. The optics of the meeting are likely to be as important to the leaders as its results. Moscow is keen to show it is not isolated on the world stage, while Trump has ignored criticism at home to plot a course towards closer relations with Putin.

“I’ve said it from day one, getting along with Russia and with China and with everybody is a very good thing,” Trump said, adding that Syria, Ukraine and “many other subjects” would be discussed at the summit. “It’s good for the world, it’s good for us, it’s good for everybody.”

However, US allies are concerned that a show of warmth with Putin in Helsinki, especially if it follows a combative Nato summit in Brussels five days earlier, could undermine confidence in the strength of the transatlantic alliance. Those fears were deepened earlier this month in Quebec, when Trump railed at other leaders at a G7 summit that “Nato is as bad as Nafta”, comparing the alliance to the North American free trade agreement he constantly denigrates as being at expense of the US. An amicable Trump-Putin meeting could also cast a shadow back on the US president’s visit to the UK between the Nato and Helsinki summits, particularly if his encounter with Theresa May is as frosty as recent exchanges between the US and British leaders.(theguardian)…[+]