[ad_1]
Although President Donald Trump has twice met Russian Vladimir Putin, he is eager to recreate in Finland the exhilarating experience he had last month with North Korean leader Kim Jong One in Singapore: a summit turned into a full media event with powerful presidential images. Always the showman and insisting on establishing closer ties with Moscow, Trump overthrew his advisers and demanded rituals and the pageantry of a formal summit.
Trump was boasting to confidants about the number of cameras in Singapore, claiming that he was covering Oscar coverage, according to a person familiar with his thought but unauthorized to discuss private conversations and so on. spoke on condition of anonymity. Although Trump initially expressed his concern that Helsinki was not glamorous enough and preferred to welcome Putin to the White House, the president was rebadured by his badistants that this would be an effective backdrop. And having long believed in the power of personal relationships, he insisted to the badistants that it was essential to sit down with Putin to make a report.
"He was very kind to me every time I met him, I was nice to him, he is a competitor," Trump said about Putin last week at Brussels. "You know, someone said:" Is he an enemy? "No, he's not my enemy." Is he a friend? "No, I do not know him well enough.
With his experience as a salesman and salesman, Trump has long been convinced that his mastery of powerful images has been essential to his political rise. The president told councilors that Singapore's diplomacy made him look like a president in charge. And it was not lost on him that his poll numbers received a temporary bump after the meeting.
With the same attention to detail that he devoted to campaign commercials, Trump inspired many looks for his encounter with Kim, including the initial greeting and handshake of both leaders and later , their head-to-head. At one point, he scared the secret service by giving Kim an impromptu visit of some powerful American machine – the presidential limousine known as "The Beast".
Although the results of the North Korea summit are debatable, Trump told his confidants that he believed it was a master stroke, according to three outside advisors and House officials white. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss private conversations.
Still in favor of the audacious gambits that separated him from his predecessors, Trump believed that the historic meeting with Kim was potentially his ticket to a Nobel Peace Prize and would become an essential part of his legacy. While the summits with Russian leaders are much more common, Trump thinks that a similar boost could happen if he could improve relations with Moscow and get Putin to make concessions never reached by the president. Barack Obama.
"I could say," Can you do me a favor? Do you want to get out of Syria, "said Trump in an interview with Fox News last month." Would you do me a favor, do you want to get out of Ukraine? "
And while Singapore's imagery made the idea of Putin's summit much more enticing, Trump was already keen to set up an individual meeting, even with the risks badociated with the meeting of an experienced leader who is also a former KGB official.
The president met Putin on the sidelines of international summits last year – once in Germany, once in Vietnam – and both times he invited his Russian counterpart to the White House, according to three officials of the Current and old administration. He reiterated the invitation on a call with Putin this spring and first told badistants that he wanted to have the meeting at the White House.
He was later convinced to do so abroad, turning the summit on his planned visit to Belgium and Great Britain. Originally concerned that Helsinki was not a suitable place, Trump gave in after being informed of the history of the US-Russian summits in Finland and after seeing that it could be scheduled after a visit to one of his golf courses in Scotland, according to the three councilors and officials.
But many in Washington are wary of the summit happening anywhere, believing that by agreeing to meet, Trump has offered greater global legitimacy to Putin, who will preside over the Cup final of the world in Moscow the day before the summit. Assists argued to Trump that the chances of substantial progress on a host of thorny issues, including Syria and Ukraine, are slim.
Long-time American allies and White House aides expressed their concerns about the meeting. Hovering over Helsinki is the specter of the 2016 election interference and the ongoing special council investigation into the possibility of collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russia. Capitol Hill has called on the president to cancel the summit after the indictment Friday of 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking Democrats in order to help Trump.
"If President Trump is not ready to hold Putin accountable, the Helsinki summit should not go forward," said Republican Senator John McCain of the United States. ;Arizona.
But the White House insisted the meeting was open. Trump has repeatedly questioned the conclusion that Russia was behind the hacking and often ridiculed the investigation of Special Adviser Robert Mueller on the possible links between Russia and his campaign as a "witch hunt". But he said in Britain that he would raise electoral interference with Putin even as he was downplaying his impact.
"I do not think you have any" Gee, I did it, I did it, you even got me, "Trump said Friday, summoning a TV detective. "There will not be any Perry Mason here, I do not think so, but you never know what's going on, is not it?" But I'll ask the question firmly. "
Source link
