President Trump will experience the most crucial diplomatic test of his presidency when he sits down
Trump set for crucial diplomatic test in first face-to-face with Putin
Carolyn Kaster/AP
President Trump will experience the most crucial diplomatic test of his presidency when he sits down Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit.
It couldn't come at a more politically or diplomatically sensitive
moment for both leaders. As Trump faces pressure over the multiple
investigations into his campaign's ties with Russia and Russian
interference in the 2016 presidential election,
there are also questions on whether the president will stand up to
Putin's aggression in Ukraine, as well as his support for the Assad
regime in Syria.
Speculation has been building for months about a potential face-to-face
between the leaders, and already, Moscow has built on the anticipation
by releasing an extensive, if predictable, "agenda" for the meeting.
In contrast, the White House has sought to temper expectations, with a
senior administration official telling ABC News that Trump is not likely
to put together an agenda for the meeting because it’s expected to be
brief. Any agenda the U.S. does have will not be released to the public,
an official said. Members of the president’s national security team will join him during the talks.
The official also expressed doubt that Russia’s meddling in the 2016
election would play a prominent part in the meeting, viewing it as a
waste of time and “a loser of a topic.” It's not clear, however, whether
the topic will come up.
It’s a striking admission, considering the high-stakes nature of the
meeting and Putin’s reputation to meticulously plan and prepare for
potential scenarios that would show him having the upper-hand optically.
The president has been receiving briefings on issues that are paramount
to the U.S.-Russia relationship and he has received papers prepared by
his national security team, an administration official said. Leading up
to the trip, Trump has spoken every day with National Security Adviser
H.R. McMaster, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis.
Here are the topics and stakes that will weigh heavily over the meeting:
THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION
The grey cloud hanging over the two leaders' when they shake hands in
Hamburg will no doubt be the ongoing investigations into Russian
interference in the election, as well as potential collusion with Trump
campaign officials.
Trump has repeatedly railed against the investigations as a “hoax” orchestrated by the Democratic party, but his statements have done little to reduce the political pressure.
The administration’s reluctance to say whether Trump will confront
Russia on its suspected election meddling is now contrasted with Trump’s
own statements in recent weeks criticizing the Obama administration for
not doing enough to punish Russia for its activities. In contrast,
former President Obama has said he used his G-20 meeting with Putin in
September 2016 to confront him on the hacking.
For Trump to let the meeting pass without raising the issue at all could earn him bipartisan scorn.
“If he doesn’t, he comes back here, I think, to a firestorm,” said
Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former
U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. “He’ll be criticized by the media, he’ll be
criticized by people like me, he’ll be criticized by Congress.”
SYRIA/UKRAINE
A senior administration official said issues pertaining to Ukraine and Syria are likely to dominate the meeting's agenda.
The White House has said sanctions will not be lifted on Russia until it withdraws from Crimea. And it was just two weeks ago, as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
arrived at the White House, that the Treasury Department’s Office of
Foreign Assets Control released a list of 38 individuals it will target
with sanctions related to Russia’s occupation of Crimea.
Meanwhile, Russia’s continued support for the Assad regime -- including
April’s sarin gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun -- led President
Trump to acknowledge that relations with Russia were "at an all-time
low," following his orders to strike a Syrian airbase.
The dispute reignited just last week with an ominous statement from press secretary Sean Spicer,
indicating that U.S. intelligence detected possible preparations for
another chemical attack and warning of consequences against Assad and
Syria’s military in the event one was carried out. Russia called the
warning “unacceptable,” and said any attack could potentially compromise
the de-confliction channel between U.S. and Russian forces in Syria.
OUTSMARTING PUTIN/SANCTIONS?
In the event there’s consensus or compromise on an issue, Trump will be labeled by some as kowtowing to Putin’s demands.
“My concern about the meeting is that Vladimir Putin will come into that
meeting extremely well prepared. I think that’s been the experience of
President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama that this guy knows
his briefs,” the Brookings Institutions' Pifer said. "There’s a certain
risk that President Putin could describe something that sounds really
good, and President Trump will say yes before he fully understands some
hidden downsides. And if the downsides are discovered afterwards and the
deal falls apart within a couple of days that actually puts U.S.-Russia
relations in a bigger hole.”
And if there’s some sort of heated confrontation, it could further exacerbate tensions between the U.S. and Russia.
“There clearly are risks when you’ve got a foreign policy process as
disorganized as it appears to be in this administration,” said Jeffrey
Rathke, deputy director of the Europe Program at Center for Strategic
and International Studies. “There is a risk of making commitments in one
-– in one field that could impinge on other interests that haven’t yet
been fully discussed in an inter-agency process.”
Foreign policy experts say it sets up a likely "no-win" situation in terms of the outcome of the meeting.
"Trump will be unable to move on U.S.-Russian relations, even if he
would like to, because Russia’s policy remains toxic in U.S. domestic
politics," Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Council on Foreign and
Defense Policy said. “His handshake with Putin, though, will no doubt
cause another political tsunami in Washington, which will further
undermine their prospects for interacti…
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