Trump makes return to Europe and lines up a first encounter with Putin

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump returns to Europe this week and will have his first encounter with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Mr Trump’s first visit to the continent in May stirred anxieties among European allies when he declined to endorse Nato’s common defence treaty explicitly and scolded world leaders for not spending more on their armed forces.

This time, Mr Trump will use stops in Poland and Germany to try to pull off the tricky balancing act of improving ties with Moscow at a time of particularly fraught relations while also presenting the US as a check against Russian aggression.

Mr Trump is leaving Washington for Europe today. In what may be the most-watched event of the four-day trip, the president will meet Mr Putin on Friday on the sidelines of an international summit in Hamburg, Germany.

Every aspect of the meeting between the two unpredictable leaders is sure to be closely scrutinised as investigations press on into alleged Moscow meddling in the 2016 election and potential Trump campaign collusion.

With those investigations hanging in the air, there is little expectation the meeting will produce significant progress on difficult issues such as the crisis in Ukraine or the conflict in Syria.

“I can’t imagine any issue they can actually make major headway on, given the poison that surrounds the relationship,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy at The Brookings Institution, who suggested it might lay the groundwork for future cooperation.

The Trump-Putin encounter will be one of at least nine meetings the US president will have with foreign leaders while in Hamburg for a G20 summit of industrial and emerging market nations, beginning on Friday.

But first Mr Trump will stop in Poland, where leaders are looking for reassurance that the presence of US and Nato troops there will continue as long as the region’s security is threatened by a resurgent Russia.