United States

Trump’s European trip and the Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin

In July 2018 Trump stirred controversy on a trip to Europe. At a meeting of the heads of government of NATO countries, he accused the other member states of not paying their fair share for the organization’s operations. While visiting Britain, he gave a newspaper interview in which he was critical of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s handling of her country’s withdrawal from the EU (“Brexit”), while he praised Boris Johnson, her political rival within the Conservative Party. Trump then characterized the EU as a trading “foe” of the United States. All this riling of traditional U.S. allies occurred in the lead-up to Trump’s summit meeting in Helsinki with Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin, which followed on the heels of the indictments of the 12 Russian intelligence agents.

In the press conference that followed Putin and Trump’s roughly two-hour one-on-one meeting (only translators had been present), Putin once again denied Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In response to a reporter’s question, Trump indicated that he trusted Putin’s denial more than the conclusions of his own intelligence service. Moreover, Trump refused to take the opportunity to condemn other transgressive Russian actions. Politicians on both sides of the aisle were deeply critical of the president’s statements and comportment. When he returned to Washington, Trump attempted to “walk back” some of the comments he had made in Helsinki. He expressed his support for U.S. intelligence agencies and claimed that he had misspoken during the press conference, saying “would” when he meant to say “wouldn’t” in the statement “I don’t see any reason why it would be [Russia that had interfered with the U.S. election].” Trump also said that he had forcefully warned Putin during their meeting against any further Russian intervention in U.S. elections, but he then made the surprising announcement that he would be inviting Putin to a summit in Washington in the autumn.