The White House has walked back President Donald Trump’s announcement of an imminent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with a US official stating Tuesday that no such gathering is planned for the immediate future. The reversal comes less than a week after Trump proclaimed on social media that he would meet Putin in Budapest within two weeks.
Following Monday’s telephone conversation between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, American officials have concluded that additional diplomatic preparations are not necessary at this time. The decision effectively puts any potential Trump-Putin summit on indefinite hold, despite Trump’s recent optimistic pronouncements about the state of US-Russia relations.
The US administration official, speaking anonymously, characterized the Rubio-Lavrov phone call as “productive,” suggesting substantive discussions occurred even though no concrete meeting plans emerged. Russian officials have similarly adopted a cautious tone, with the Kremlin announcing Tuesday that there is no “precise timeframe” for organizing a summit between Trump and Putin.
The confusion originated from a Thursday telephone call between the two presidents, which Trump interpreted as a breakthrough moment in bilateral relations. The American president’s enthusiasm prompted him to quickly announce via social media that he would meet Putin within two weeks in Budapest, a declaration made just before his scheduled meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss providing Ukraine with powerful Tomahawk missiles.
Trump’s handling of relations with Putin has been marked by sudden policy reversals, including his August decision to host Putin in Alaska, representing the Russian leader’s first visit to Western soil since launching the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. While Trump has repeatedly claimed his personal connection with Putin would enable him to end the Ukraine war within a day of taking office, he has recently acknowledged experiencing frustrations in his dealings with the Russian president.