Trump to meet Putin at G-20 summit in Germany

TIL Desk/World/Washington/ United States President Donald Trump will have a first face-to-face meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Germany next week on the sidelines of the G-20 leadership summit, the White House said. The agenda of the meeting is still being worked out, officials said, adding that Trump is planning to have bilateral meetings with a host of other world leaders on the sidelines of the G-20 summit.

“The President has asked us to work together across all departments and agencies to do, really, three things:  to confront Russia’s destabilising behaviour — whether it’s cyber threats, whether it’s political subversion here in Europe and elsewhere,” US National Security Advisor, Lt Gen H R McMaster told reporters at a White House news conference.

“The second is to deter Russia. Because nobody wants a major power war, right?  So what is it that we have to put in place to be able to deter conflict. Then the third thing is to foster areas of cooperation,” he said. There are a lot of problems in the world that can be discussed during the meeting.  North Korea, for example, is one of them; the fight against transnational terrorist organisations is another, said the US National Security Advisor.

In Germany, he said, Trump would hold bilateral meetings with other world leaders Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, China, Mexico, Indonesia, and Singapore.  There could be more. In G-20, the primary objectives are to promote American prosperity, to protect American interests, and to provide American leadership.