Putin joins Trump invite swap
PROSPECT OF RUSSIAN PRESIDENT IN US APPALS CRITICS
>> WASHINGTON: Rarely has an RSVP been so complicated.
President Donald Trump is open to visiting Moscow — if he gets a formal invitation from Vladimir Putin, the White House said. Russian President Putin said he’s game for a trip to Washington — but his answer came only after Mr Trump retracted his invitation for a fall sit-down.
The awkward back and forth is the latest round of summit drama flowing from the two leaders’ controversial first meeting in Helsinki this month. It underscores Mr Trump’s eagerness to forge a warmer relationship with Mr Putin, though the Russian does not appear to share the urgency and Mr Trump’s allies in Washington are watching with frustration.
Mr Trump’s tentative yes to a Moscow trip comes even as lawmakers are still pushing for details about what he and Mr Putin discussed in Helsinki. The president has been widely criticised for failing to denounce Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election and appearing to accept Putin’s denials of such activity.
Mr Trump’s response to the criticism — an abruptly announced invitation for a second meeting in Washington in the fall — got an ice-cold reception from Republicans in Congress facing tough elections in November. Moscow was lukewarm and did not immediately accept.
Then National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Wednesday that plans for a fall visit would be delayed until 2019. He cited special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling as the reason, using Mr Trump’s favourite term for the probe: “witch hunt’’.
But the possibility of Mr Trump’s trip to Moscow emerged on Friday after Mr Putin said he was ready to invite Mr Trump — or to visit Washington if conditions are right.
“I understand well what Mr Trump said: He has the wish to conduct further meetings,’’ Mr Putin said while travelling in Johannesburg. “I am ready for this. We are ready to invite President Trump to Moscow. By the way, he has such an invitation, I told him of this. I am prepared to go to Washington, but, I repeat, if the appropriate conditions for work are created.’’
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded that Mr Trump “looks forward to having Mr Putin to Washington after the first of the year, and he is open to visiting Moscow upon receiving a reciprocal formal invitation.’’
But it’s just talk at this point. It’s part of “a power game between Mr Putin and Mr Trump,’’ said Dr Alina Polyakova of the Brookings Institution. She said the Kremlin basically drove the entire process in Helsinki, and “we’re seeing that again now’’.
Mr Trump is hardly in a strong position because “the Helsinki summit was such a fiasco,’’ said James Goldgeier of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr Putin’s visit to Washington between now and January “could have a lot of poor optics,’’ he said, and “it’s really hard to see the upside’’ of a Trump trip to Moscow. The spectacle of Mr Trump in the Russian capital — the site of unproven salacious allegations in an anti-Trump dossier compiled by a former British spy — was likely to raise eyebrows and alarm on Capitol Hill.
Just two days earlier, lawmakers from both political parties unsuccessfully demanded details of the Helsinki meeting from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who stonewalled nearly all those inquiries at a contentious hearing by maintaining that the president has a right to private conversations.
Since Helsinki, Mr Trump has tried to walk back at least some of his comments. And Mr Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that despite Trump’s public statements that allegations of Russian interference are “a hoax’’ he accepts that Russia did meddle in the 2016 election.
Mr Trump met his national security team on Friday to discuss threats to the 2018 congressional midterm elections, the first such session he has convened amid warnings from intelligence officials that Russia is again intent on interfering in the US democratic process.
The White House said Mr Trump “made it clear that his Administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from any nation state or other malicious actors.’’ Republican lawmakers have made it clear they are not eager to see Mr Putin, who intelligence officials say was aware of the 2016 interference, just weeks before Election Day 2018.