President Donald Trump on Friday stated that he plans to bring up the Russian election meddling during his upcoming July 16 Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin. He told reporters aboard Air Force One that he planned to discuss Ukraine, Syria, and Crimea as well as election interference during the summit which he believes could help defuse tensions between Moscow and Washington.
“We’ll be talking about elections. We don’t want anybody tampering with elections,” Trump said, according to AP.
When asked if he might lift sanctions imposed on Russia, the President only told reporters, “We’ll see what Russia does. We’re going to be talking to Russia about a lot of things. We’re going to be talking to them about Syria, we’re going to be talking to them about Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that President Trump repeated his complaint that Germany and other European nations need to spend more on the military alliance just two weeks before a NATO summit in Brussels.
“Germany has to spend more money. Spain, France. It’s not fair what they’ve done to the United States,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Following these and other comments the President has made about NATO allies, the U.S. ambassador to Estonia, James D. Melville Jr. announced to friends Friday that he was resigning.
“A Foreign Service Officer’s DNA is programmed to support policy and we’re schooled right from the start, that if there ever comes a point where one can no longer do so, particularly if one is in a position of leadership, the honorable course is to resign. Having served under six presidents and 11 secretaries of state, I never really thought it would reach that point for me,” he wrote in the post, which was obtained by Foreign Policy.
“For the President to say the EU was ‘set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank,’ or that ‘NATO is as bad as NAFTA’ is not only factually wrong but proves to me that it’s time to go,” he wrote.
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