Trump Cancels Meeting With Putin, Citing Naval Clash Between Russia and Ukraine
New York Time – BUENOS AIRES — President Trump on Thursday abruptly canceled his planned meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, citing the unresolved naval standoff between Russia and Ukraine and upending his hopes of further cementing the relationship between the two leaders.
The president’s decision, announced on Twitter barely an hour after he told reporters he still expected to go through with the meeting, came shortly after new revelations that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer was secretly negotiating to build a tower in Moscow during the 2016 presidential election.
The president has adamantly denied any collusion with Russia during the campaign and dismissed questions about business ventures or economic interests in Russia. But Michael D. Cohen, his former personal lawyer and fixer, admitted in court on Thursday that he had engaged in negotiations for a Moscow tower well into the campaign and personally briefed Mr. Trump and members of his family.
The president’s sudden decision to scrap the meeting was the latest twist in months of efforts to set up a session between the two leaders. Mr. Trump announced the cancellation in a Twitter message while on Air Force One flying to Buenos Aires for an economic summit meeting, where he was scheduled to sit down with Mr. Putin. T he Kremlin said it had not even been notified.
“Based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia, I have decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting in Argentina with President Vladimir Putin,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter.
“I look forward to a meaningful Summit again as soon as this situation is resolved!” he added.
Speaking with reporters on the South Lawn before leaving the White House, he sounded more positive about the session.
“I probably will be meeting with President Putin,” he said. “I think it is a very good time to have a meeting.” He added that he would be getting a report on Air Force One about the clash with Ukraine “and that will determine what I’m going to do.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, told reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One that he opted to scrub the meeting after reviewing the report on Russia’s actions against Ukraine. Mr. Trump conferred with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and with John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, who were on the plane, and by phone with John R. Bolton, his national security adviser, who was in Brazil.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told Russian reporters that they had seen Mr. Trump’s tweet but had no other word from the American government.
“We don’t have official information,” he said, according to the Tass news agency. He added, “If this is so,” then Mr. Putin “will have a few additional hours in the schedule for useful meetings on the sidelines of the summit.”
The meeting was scrapped days after Russian forces seized three small Ukrainian naval vessels and more than 20 sailors, including at least three wounded in a shooting by the Russian side, and briefly blocked passage through the Kerch Strait. Ukraine’s government declared temporary martial law.
While Mr. Trump had said earlier in the week that he was not happy about the aggression, he had left any stronger denunciation of Russia’s action to his United Nations ambassador. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle had called on Mr. Trump to take a tougher stance and even cancel the meeting with Mr. Putin.
The two leaders were to get together while both were in Buenos Aires for the Group of 20, or G-20, summit meeting of large economic powers. It was to be their first meeting since they saw each other in Helsinki and Mr. Trump appeared to equate Mr. Putin’s denial that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential elections with the firm conclusions of American intelligence agencies that it did.
Mr. Trump had been trying to set up another meeting for months, first suggesting Mr. Putin come visit the White House and later arranging to sit down together in Paris earlier this month, but neither idea went ahead. Instead, the two leaders settled on Buenos Aires for their next meeting.
The session was already freighted by multiple tension points between the two countries in addition to the lingering issue of the election meddling.
Mr. Trump recently declared that he would withdraw the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, citing Russian violations, an issue that was sure to come up. Syria and Iran were other flash points expected to be discussed.
But the meeting also could have raised questions about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia after Mr. Cohen’s revelations. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has been investigating whether any of Mr. Trump’s campaign aides or associates collaborated with Russia during the election season to release stolen Democratic emails or otherwise interfere in the campaign.
Source: US Government Class
