Posted on 07/07/2017 8:10:50 AM PDT by Helicondelta
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are to meet for the first time today amid violent protest in Hamburg as the two leaders hold a full bilateral meeting, which will include a photocall and public comments.
The timing of the meeting, which according to the White Houses schedule will start at 2.45pm, would mean the two leaders would be unlikely to take part in the working session on energy and climate change. Russias news agency Interfax said the meeting was at 3pm, UK time, which might allow them to attend the start.
(Excerpt) Read more at t.co ...
They actually have 35 head of states in the g20 official picture.
You have to be inclusive, don’t you know.
I think things between Putin and Trump might be a bit tense following Trump’s Poland speech, where he was pretty tough on Russia (and rightly so).
Trump clearly “took sides” with Poland against Russia, not only with his comments about Russia’s brutal occupation in the last century, but also with regard to Russia’s support of terrorist states. Even more significant were Trump’s pointed comments regarding freeing Poland from its energy dependency on Russia.
Poland importing it’s natural gas from the US not only hurts Russia financially through loss of a client state, and by undercutting prices Russia can charge for fuel elsewhere, but it weakens Russia’s global position as a power broker, since Russia uses energy dependency strategically to exert leverage over client states.
Russia is heavily dependant on revenues from fuel exports, and is already being hit hard by falling oil prices. Competition with the US as a supplier of energy, right in their back yard can not be a welcome thing.
It will be interesting to see how Putin reacts. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some coldness toward Trump.
HaHaHa ... I guess Merkel knows where she ranks in Trumps priorities.
With no way for Frau Merkel to vent at either the US or Russia, she may suffer from a cerebral infarction, as her head explodes from all the repressed anger that nobody important (i.e., anybody they can defraud out of huge sums of money) is listening to what she had to say.
At least they have their priorities straight.
Putin’s Russia has a problem. It is muslims.
In that, there will be an agreement.
Russia’s reason in Syria is for one thing, that is its military base there. We can all speculate on the oil and all the rest, but their main reason to being there is to protect that military/naval base there. Warm water port in a strategic area. IMO it is not because of trying to stop a pipeline being built through Syria because that pipeline can be put up through Jordan and up off the coast to Europe.
I dont disagree with you on the oil revenue and how Russia has used it for leverage. But they are now learning what competition is.
Russia can not compete in a fair market. They are financially in dire straights. I agree.
Great powers discuss while the pieces of sht irrelevant me too idiot liberals discuss global warming and women fund raising for the next bingo game
True, there’s a few different issues.
Another one that might cause some camaraderie between the two leaders is that Putin appears to be a proud man who would not be caught dead taking sides with the foolish American MSM.
Even though it may have been to Russia’s advantage to damage Trump’s presidency by going along with and fueling the fires of the Russian/Trump collusion meme, he seems to be too proud to stoop to that level of absurdity.
And that has been fortunate for Trump. A well timed “confession” by Putin that the collusion took place would certainly not have helped Trump put the matter to rest.
“A well timed confession by Putin that the collusion took place would certainly not have helped Trump put the matter to rest.”
No, but a well timed confession by Putin that the collusion took place between Russia, the Clinton campaign and the Clinton Foundation would have been hysterical to watch.
It’s a shakedown.
If everybody thinks you’re the fish and you don’t attend, the farce begins to unfold.
Yes - in the last months before the election I was sure something fun like that would surface...
Powerful optics. Two of the world’s most important leaders just thumbed their noses at the whole phoney baloney climate change scam.
My fantasy is that Putin gets up and trolls the MSN along with Trump.
Get up and say that Russia is doing an internal investigation of Russia Mob connections with the DNC during the US election.
Boy, would that set it off.
Ha! That would be great
Art of The Deal, baby. Trump is always negotiating. That was his opening bid to Vlad. He's positioning himself and his leverage leverage to set future terms.
We never did find out who hacked those climate gate emails, now did we ? Lol.
Agreed - I have total confidence in Trump
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