Rarely has an RSVP been so complicated.
US President Donald Trump is open to visiting Moscow — if he gets a formal invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House said, and Putin said he is game for a trip to Washington — but his answer came only after Trump retracted his invitation for a fall sit-down.
The back-and-forth is the latest round of summit drama flowing from the two leaders’ first meeting in Helsinki earlier this month and underscores Trump’s eagerness to forge a warmer relationship with Putin, although the Russian does not appear to share the urgency.
Photo: Reuters
Trump’s tentative “yes” to a Moscow trip came even as US lawmakers are still pushing for details about what he and Putin discussed in Helsinki.
The possibility of a Trump trip to Moscow emerged on Friday, after Putin said he was ready to invite Trump — or to visit Washington.
“I understand very well what President Trump said: He has the wish to conduct further meetings,” Putin said while traveling 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 said that Trump “looks forward to having President Putin to Washington after the first of the year, and he is open to visiting Moscow upon receiving a reciprocal formal invitation.”
It is part of a “power game,” said Alina Polyakova of the Brookings Institution, adding that the Kremlin basically drove the entire process in Helsinki and “we’re seeing that again now.”
Trump on Friday met with his national security team to discuss threats to November’s 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 released a statement saying that Trump “made it clear that his administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from any nation state or other malicious actors.”
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