Why Trump goes to Europe for a week: all the president’s plans

US President Donald Trump departs on Tuesday for an extended European tour, during which he will visit Belgium, the UK and Finland. The key point of this almost week-long trip of the 45th President of the United States will be the first full-format Russian-American summit meeting during his tenure in office. It will take place on July 16 on neutral territory - in Helsinki, writes TASS.

Photo facebook.com/DonaldTrump

Negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the program of the American leader will be preceded by participation in the NATO summit in Brussels, a stay with the first official visit to London and a visit to Scotland. However, in Washington they do not doubt that the main part of the overseas tour of the American leader will be his new personal meeting with his Russian counterpart.

“I doubt President Trump has [any] big ambitions related to the NATO summit. He is probably much more enthusiastic about meeting President Putin because his instincts - not necessarily all wrong in my opinion - tell him that building stronger ties [between Moscow and Washington] could begin to reduce the degree of rivalry and severity threats in the current relations between the United States and Russia, even if some fundamental problems remain unresolved,” Michael O’Hanlon, an American political scientist from the Brookings Institution, told a TASS correspondent.

A similar opinion expressed in his new column posted in the journal Time, American analyst, founder and head of the international research and consulting firm Eurasia Group Ian Bremmer. “After a short stop <...> in Brussels, perhaps in order to argue with US allies, Trump will go to the first official summit between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki <...>. Trump's meeting with Putin will be the subject of news headlines and columnists for days to come—and for obvious reasons […],” Bremmer writes.

Finance Discussion

The head of the Washington administration, as previously reported by the US Permanent Representative to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison, will arrive in the capital of Belgium on Tuesday evening. First of all, he will have a separate meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Trump will then attend events with all other heads of state and government of NATO member countries.

“The emphasis, of course, will be on sharing the [financial] burden […],” Hutchison confirmed. “And also on the increase [in defense spending] from 2014 and last year.” “All of our allies - 100% - are increasing military spending, and we will talk about this as an achievement, but also that we need to do more [in this area],” said the American ambassador to NATO.

Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO countries, primarily Germany, for the fact that, in his opinion, they do not spend enough money to support the collective defense of the alliance. The president promised to raise the issue again in Brussels.

Deterrence of Russia

According to Hutchison, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization intends to devote significant time at the meeting in Brussels to discussing the issue of containing Russia. “Significant attention at the summit will be paid to containing Russia, its malign activities, Russia’s efforts to create divisions in our democratic society, violations of the provisions of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,” the permanent representative said.

In addition, Brussels will “emphasize that NATO's doors are open to new members,” Hutchison continued. As she noted, the alliance will confirm its commitment to admit Georgia and Ukraine, whose leaders are invited to the summit, into its ranks in the future. “We will support the desire of Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO, as well as their sovereignty,” the diplomat declared. According to the information she presented, a NATO meeting, which will be attended by the leaders of Ukraine and Georgia, will be held in the Belgian capital on July 12.

Finally, the summit participants are expected to “unanimously approve” the new NATO command structure, which provides for the formation of two new headquarters - in the United States and Germany, agree on the “4 by 30” initiative (a plan for the creation of second-tier permanent readiness forces), and approve the “creation of support teams counter-hybrid operations, expand support for operations in Afghanistan and announce a “new mission to train Iraqis,” Hutchison added.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Photo: kremlin.ru

Visit to the UK

From Brussels, Trump will fly to London, where he will not only have negotiations with Prime Minister Theresa May, but also an audience with Queen Elizabeth II. US Ambassador to the UK Robert Johnson argued ahead of the visit that the "special relationship" between Washington and London was now "stronger than ever". “He (Trump - TASS hereinafter) knows that he has an opportunity to make this special relationship even stronger,” the diplomat noted.

According to him, Trump adheres to the same position as the authorities of the United Kingdom on the issue of high-profile cases of poisoning, allegedly with the use of nerve gas.

The ambassador, without going into details, said that Trump and May “will discuss the issue of relations with Russia” at the Checkers countryside prime minister’s residence on July 13.

Along with this, the US President, as Johnson informed, is going to discuss with the head of the UK government the possibility of concluding a “bilateral trade deal.”

In conclusion, the ambassador assured that Trump is not worried about the prospect of facing a cool reception from the British public, which is preparing mass protests against the policies of the US president.

Playing golf

Commenting on the plans for the trip of US President and First Lady Melanie Trump at the end of his visit to London to Scotland, Johnson categorically refused to clarify whether the American leader intends to play golf there. The Ambassador made it clear that this, in his opinion, is completely unimportant.

It is assumed that the head of the US administration will visit his Trump Turnberry golf resort in Scotland and will leave the UK after that either immediately or after visiting the Scottish city of Aberdeen. It is known that in the Aberdeenshire area there is another Trump golf club called Trump International Golf Links. Official London, as noted earlier by the United Kingdom’s Secretary of the Treasury, Lees Truss, decided to bear all the costs of Trump visiting Scotland.

At the same time, the ambassador said that Trump was going to devote significant time during his stay in Scotland to preparing for the meeting with Putin. “After visiting Windsor (Windsor Castle, the country residence of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain), the President and First Lady will travel to Scotland to spend some time preparing for Helsinki <…>,” Johnson said.

“He (Trump) will spend a lot of time preparing for Helsinki. This is an extremely important meeting,” the diplomat emphasized.

Donald Trump. Photo: Twitter / Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Russia-US Summit

Trump will arrive in Helsinki on July 15. As Russian Ambassador to the United States Jon Huntsman admitted, holding a full-fledged Russian-American summit in Helsinki is in the interests of Washington. “The President has concluded that the time has now come for direct contact between him and President Putin, that this is in the interests of the United States, in the interests of Russia, in the interests of peace and security throughout the planet. And that’s how he moves forward,” Huntsman said.

“The important thing here is that we start a discussion. We [last year] had discussions on the sidelines of [various] meetings - at the G20 summit in Hamburg, at the APEC meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam. However, this is truly the first opportunity to sit down at the negotiating table and begin an extremely important dialogue, very similar to the one that took place between President [Ronald] Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev or Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev,” the diplomat is convinced.

From his point of view, it is currently important to “give a sober assessment of the root causes” of the problems in Russian-American relations. “There needs to be a dialogue about the real state of the relationship,” Huntsman said.

“We must understand through dialogue what our expectations are regarding the resolution of key problems in our bilateral relations. Some of them may concern strategic stability and arms control, some will inevitably affect the situation around Ukraine. And, of course, Syria is [also] an important topic for dialogue,” the ambassador said.

Negotiations with Putin

As he clarified, Putin and Trump will first hold “a one-on-one bilateral meeting <...> and then negotiations in an expanded format, followed by a working lunch.”

Huntsman did not rule out that specific agreements would be concluded at the summit. “I think the fact that we are holding a summit at this level at this moment in history is an achievement in itself. But I do not rule out that there will be certain specific agreements that will be announced at the end of the summit,” the ambassador said.

According to him, Washington proceeds from the fact that the leaders of the two countries should discuss “the many issues that have accumulated, not only during President Trump’s tenure in office, but, of course, long before that.” “So the summit itself is an important result. Let me say that a change in the atmosphere can lead to a change in a number of other things. I can only point to the summit [of Donald Trump] with [DPRK leader] Kim Jong-un [in Singapore], which already shows the possibility of reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, as well as, of course, in Northeast Asia [in general],” stated Huntsman.

“Just imagine what a reduction in tension can lead to in the case of the United States and Russia, Europe and Russia! The implications of this would be much greater. So I would not at all underestimate the importance of the first summit [Russia and the United States] and the discussion of issues that are of greatest importance,” the diplomat concluded.

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