Putin meeting an accomplishment in itself, envoy says
- by Kristina Cox
- in World Media
- — Jul 6, 2018
The official, speaking on a call with reporters, portrayed the Helsinki meeting - which comes just four days after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - as one in a long line of outreach opportunities American presidents have undertaken: "In the end, I think it's fair to say since the end of the Cold War each president has tried a reset of the relationship, but it has led to a boom and bust cycle" that has left the relationship in worse shape each time.
Also in the teleconference, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the US envoy to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), said Russian Federation would be a key topic at the NATO summit in Belgium next week. "And you need to make sure that we're willing, on our side, to hold Russian Federation responsible for the many activities that they are responsible for, whether that is election meddling; malign activities throughout Europe, including the Balkans, U.K. and Brexit, France, and Italy, just to mention a few; and to hold them responsible for" the destabilizing use of social media.
Trump once again claimed the US had a trade deficit of $151 billion with the European Union-a figure that is around $50 billion greater than his own administration's statistics, which include services as well as goods. "This doesn't mean that we should encourage the spread of extremist or other outlawed material, however, we need to protect the citizens from cases that aren't even farcical, but quite high-profile", he stressed.
"They make it impossible to do business in Europe", Trump insisted at his rally.
"You can't solve problems if you are not talking about them", said Huntsman.
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On the same day Lionel Messi was sent home in Argentina's loss, the other "GOAT" at this tournament was also eliminated. Uruguay beat Russian Federation 3-0 while Portugal were held 1-1 by Iran, with a last-minute penalty.
This decision follows an update from French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the European Council last week on the state of implementation of the Minsk agreements, to which the sanctions are linked. Do they ever tell you that?
Other than with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump has no other bilateral meetings scheduled. After Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, all NATO Allies pledged to end cuts to their respective defence budgets and move toward spending 2 percent of their GDP on defence by 2024.
The conversation made no mention of rocket ships. At Trump's rally, the president suggested he had done enough to allay fears among Americans that he did not view US allies favorably.
Trump has frequently called the Justice Department's investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russian Federation in the 2016 elections a "witch hunt", and he repeated Putin's denial that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election last week in a tweet.
