The Post

Trump to meet Putin alone at Helsinki summit

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President Donald Trump will meet Vladimir Putin alone at their summit in Helsinki, a revelation sure to set nerves across Europe jangling over what possible concession­s the US leader may offer.

John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, said the Trump-Putin summit on July 16 would be ‘‘just the two of them’’. Trump will seek Russia’s help to oust Iran from the Syrian battlefiel­d, he said.

The possibilit­y of Trump meeting the Russian president in private unsettled European allies even before it was confirmed. They are fretting over what promises Putin may extract, from US recognitio­n of Russia’s annexation of Crimea to the withdrawal of American troops from Germany. Trump shocked South Korea and Japan when he promised Kim Jong-un during their solo meeting in Singapore that he would cancel US-South Korean exercises. The move was not discussed in preparator­y sessions with his national security staff.

News of the solo meeting has unsettled Trump officials too. ‘‘Nobody knows what Trump will do once he’s in the room with Putin,’’ a senior official told CBS News. ‘‘This is on just about every issue.’’

Trump will meet Putin days after a Nato summit in Brussels at which the president is expected to tell allies to spend more money on defence. The transatlan­tic alliance is already stretched to breaking point amid a widening trade row and Trump’s repeated attacks on the European Union, which he called ‘‘as bad as China’’ on trade. He has directed trade officials to draft a bill that would allow the US to abandon its commitment­s to the World Trade Organisati­on, it has since emerged.

Last week it also emerged that Trump had encouraged President Emmanuel Macron to pull France out of the EU, dangling an enhanced trade deal as a reward. European leaders have said Trump is playing into Putin’s hands by underminin­g the Western alliance.

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Donald Trump

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