No ‘common position’ on Russia, Tusk says

Free trade and Paris climate agreement also figure among issues that remain open, EU President says

European Union (EU) President Donald Tusk said talks with US President Donald Trump yesterday revealed no “common position” on Russia, a subject on which the US leader faces pressure at home.

Tusk, along with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, also argued for the benefits of open trade and the Paris climate agreement that Trump is opposed to.

Those issues “remained open”, Tusk said, though an EU official said the sides agreed to set up an EU-US task force on trade.

“I’m not 100 per cent sure that we can say today — ‘we’ means Mr President and myself — that we have a common position, common opinion about Russia,” Tusk said after meeting Trump at EU headquarters in Brussels.

“Although, when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine it seems that we were on the same line,” he said.

The unusually pointed remarks by Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, come as Trump is under fire domestically over allegations that Russia intervened to help his election campaign last year.

The US side meanwhile “expressed concern that jobs in the US would be lost because of Brexit”, an EU source said.

Trump had previously backed Britain’s vote to leave and said it would be good for both Britain and the EU.

The meeting took place at the EU’s new “Europa” headquarters in Brussels on the same day Trump attends a Nato summit, also in the Belgian capital.

As they sat for the talks, Juncker and Tusk tried to make light of the EU’s complicated institutional structure to a US president who has been highly critical of the bloc.

“You know Mister President we have two presidents in the EU,” Tusk told Trump as the men posed for cameras ahead of the talks.

“There’s one too much,” said Juncker, making a joke of his traditional rivalry with Tusk.

The leaders’ meeting quickly expanded to wider talks where Trump also met with European Parliament president Antonio Tajani and EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and economic adviser Gary Cohn attended on the US side.