President Trump will finally meet his Russian counterpart on July 7. The highly anticipated meeting will include only four other people besides the two presidents. President Putin will bring Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov while Trump will have Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The only other people attending will be two translators.
The six are meeting during G20 meetings in Germany. The media is looking for Trump to bring up election meddling, which has been a hot topic since winning the presidency. Trump has repeatedly stressed that his winning the presidential election had nothing to do with Russia.
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While some have expressed concern that Trump will be too soft on Russia, the president’s speech in Warsaw Thursday morning may foreshadow the topics of the intimate meeting.
“We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran, and to join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself,” said Trump.
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The meeting will be held at 3:45 p.m. Hamburg time and the two presidents are expected talk for about a half hour. The two could walk away with a stronger alliance and commitment to help take down ISIS together and find peaceful solutions for the Ukraine issue. The two could also walk out with relations even further strained, in light of the fact that Congress is discussing sanctions on Russia and Russia’s support of Syria and Iran.
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said that the meeting doesn’t have an official agenda, and that Trump will bring up the topics as he sees fit.
White House senior advisors would like to see staunch Kremlin critic Fiona Hill at the meeting to keep the pressure on Putin. Ms. Hill is the author of “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin,” a 2013 book investigating the Russian leader.
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Trump also expressed that he doesn’t really know if Russia or other countries interfered in last year’s election. During his Warsaw speech he didn’t directly point to the Kremlin.
He also talked about supporting NATO, which sends a signal to Russia about Washington’s military alliances in the event of military action.
