WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said that he canceled an upcoming summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin because “it didn’t feel right” to him.
“We canceled the meeting with President Putin, it didn’t feel right to me,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
“It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I canceled it, but we’ll do it in the future,” he added.
Trump also expressed his frustration over the lack of progress in the negotiations.
“In terms of honesty, the only thing I can say is, every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere,” he said.
According to Turkish news agency Anadolu, his remarks came right after the US announced new sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, citing Moscow’s “lack of serious commitment” to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine.
When asked why he is elevating sanctions against Russia right now, Trump said, “I just felt it was time. We’ve waited a long time.”
He said these are “tremendous” sanctions.
“We hope that they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled,” he added.
Meeting with President Xi
Trump said he believes Chinese President Xi Jinping can play a key role in persuading Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, ahead of their meeting next week in South Korea.
“Yeah, I do. I think he can have a big influence on Putin… And we will certainly be talking about Russia-Ukraine,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked if Xi could convince Putin to stop the war.
The president said he will meet with Xi during his upcoming trip to Asia, which will also include stops in Malaysia and Japan.
“In South Korea, I’ll be meeting with President Xi of China. We can work out a lot of our questions and our doubts and our tremendous assets together,” he said.
Trump described his relationship with Xi as “very good” and said their meeting will be a “pretty long” one.
