White House lowers expectations for Trump-Putin summit
Trump and other administration officials have indicated Friday's summit in Alaska is not meant to be one that will bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine, which began in 2022 when Russian forces invaded the country.
The president and his team have also largely avoided predicting any deliverables that might come out of the meeting and noted that it will likely take a follow-up summit involving both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for any concrete progress to be made on a ceasefire.
'There's a very good chance that we're going to have a second meeting that will be more productive than the first,' Trump said Wednesday. 'Because the first is I'm going to find out where we are and what we're doing.'
The White House has steered clear of making any firm commitments about what will come out of Friday's gathering in Anchorage, and details have been scarce as officials work to rapidly pull the event together on one week's notice. The president himself as offered mixed signals about what will happen.
Trump is expected to meet one-on-one with Putin, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, and the event will take place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. But other logistics were still being sorted out as the summit approached.
'This is a listening exercise for this president,' Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday. 'Look, only one party that's involved in this war is going to be present. And so this is for the president to go and to get, again, a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end.'
Trump is a wild card in Friday's meeting.
He has avoided setting expectations for the event, telling reporters earlier this week that the conversation with Putin 'will be good, but it might be bad.'
Trump on Wednesday threatened 'severe consequences' if Russia did not stop the fighting after this week's summit, then minutes later acknowledged that he is unlikely to be able to get Putin to stop targeting Ukrainian civilians.
And he said he hoped to arrange a second meeting quickly involving Putin and Zelensky, or that perhaps a second meeting would not happen at all.
'If the first one goes OK, we'll have a quick second one. I would like to do it almost immediately,' Trump said. 'I think the second meeting – if the second meeting takes place. Now there may be no second meeting, because if I feel it's not appropriate to have it because I didn't get the answers that we have to have, then we're not going to have a second meeting.'
Some critics have bemoaned that Trump is giving Putin a win simply by holding the meeting on U.S. soil without Zelensky or leadership from Ukraine present.
And European allies have approached Friday's meeting with caution, expressing appreciation for Trump's efforts while bracing for the possibility that he may go off script. Trump has in recent days suggested Ukraine may have to give up land to Russia as part of a peace agreement, something Ukrainian leaders have said is a non-starter.
'Pressure on Russia works. Peace has no alternative. Clear results are needed. Together, we can deliver them,' Zelensky said in a statement after a Wednesday call with Trump and European leaders.
Trump has said he intends to call Zelensky and European leaders upon the conclusion of his meeting with Putin on Friday.
The president and his allies have long argued there is little harm in holding a meeting or bettering relations with another country, and officials have made the case that this president takes a different approach to diplomacy.
'People have to understand, for President Trump, a meeting is not a concession,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio told radio host Sid Rosenberg.
'If you watch some of the news…these people are going nuts. Oh, this is – what a win for Putin; he gets a meeting. He doesn't view it that way,' Rubio said. 'A meeting is what you do to kind of figure out and make your decision. I want to have all the facts. I want to look this guy in the eye. And that's what the president wants to do.'
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