July 10, 2017

On July 7, the 12th Summit of the Group of 20 (G20) was held in Hamburg, Germany. During the G20 summit, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had their first bilateral meeting, a few months later than expected. Trump had proposed to ease relations with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign, and had also actively prepared for a meeting with Putin after taking office. However, after the resignation of former national security advisor Michael Flynn, the Trump administration has to carefully manage its relations with Russia, leading to the delay of the long-awaited Trump-Putin meeting.

Although the Trump-Putin meeting was finally held at the G20, the situation in the two countries has changed. Russia and the US have missed the best period for promoting bilateral relations. The delaying of the Trump-Putin meeting was due to some knotty problems between the two countries, such as the Syria and Ukraine crises. The Putin-Trump meeting at the G20 was more a symbolic one as the two leaders could not tackle fundamental issues.

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