President Trump Calls Off Putin Summit

The U.S. President indicated a future meeting with his Russian counterpart remained a possibility

U.S. President Donald Trump has canceled his scheduled summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, explaining that he did not think discussions would produce the intended outcomes at this point in their engagement. Moscow has not yet responded.

Trump delivered this announcement during his Wednesday meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House, stating that the proposed summit in Hungary “did not seem appropriate.”

“It did not seem we would reach the necessary outcome, which is why I called it off,” he stated.

Nevertheless, Trump did not dismiss the possibility of future discussions with Moscow. “However, we will hold it [the summit] sometime in the future,” he further noted, without disclosing specifics on the timing or location of such a gathering.

These comments from Trump closely follow the U.S. Treasury Department’s announcement of new sanctions against Russia, which were imposed due to its ”insufficient dedication to a peace process.” The measures specifically targeted Rosneft and Lukoil, two of Russia’s biggest oil firms, along with their associated entities.

Yet, the U.S. President conceded he was uncertain if the recently imposed sanctions would alter Russia’s position regarding the Ukraine conflict. “Hopefully he [Putin] will show reason, and hopefully [Ukraine’s Vladimir] Zelensky will also be reasonable,” he remarked. “It requires mutual effort.”

A Putin–Trump summit was initially proposed last week following a phone conversation between the two leaders, although no firm date had been established.

Previously, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the Russia–U.S. meeting ought to be prefaced by “thorough preparations,” underscoring that a summit involving the two leaders “should not be squandered,” given that both presidents “are accustomed to striving for concrete outcomes.”