Trump, on Eve of Putin Meeting, Calls EU a Trade ‘Foe’

HELSINKI — President Donald Trump on Sunday spent the eve of his first summit with President Vladimir Putin of Russia finding fault with allies, Barack Obama and the news media while refraining from condemning Moscow for its meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

His comments raised the stakes for the meeting, a closely scrutinized encounter that the White House said would include a 90-minute session in which the two presidents will speak one-on-one, with only their interpreters present.

The meeting is taking place just days after 12 Russian intelligence agents were indicted by the Justice Department on charges that they sought to thwart U.S. democracy during the election campaign.

And Trump’s remarks came after a week in which he sowed new doubts about his support for NATO and berated European allies for treating the United States unfairly on trade. That has raised concerns that he might offer concessions behind closed doors to a Russian president who is ready to exploit any hint of fissure within the Western alliance.

As Trump made his way to Helsinki, Finland’s capital, he said he was looking forward to the meeting, which he has said he hopes will lead to warmer relations with Putin. He indicated that he did not plan to use his time with the Russian president to press him on the election interference.

Trump also said it had not occurred to him to demand the extradition of the indicted agents to the United States to face charges. “I hadn’t thought of that,” Trump said in an interview with CBS, broadcast Sunday, when asked about the possibility.

Trump appeared to blame Obama for allowing the attacks to occur. “Certainly, I’ll be asking about it, but again, this was during the Obama administration,” he said. “They were doing whatever it was during the Obama administration.”

The agenda for the talks remained murky, although Trump has said he is eager to speak with Putin about the war in Syria, the possible extension of a nuclear arms control treaty and Ukraine, among other topics.

He has also signaled a willingness to discuss items on Putin’s agenda that fly in the face of U.S. policy and alarm European allies, including the lifting of sanctions on Moscow, the recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and halting NATO’s military exercises in the Baltics.

Far from criticizing Putin, Trump spent much of Sunday echoing some of his regular themes.

As Air Force One carried Trump to Helsinki for the meetings with Putin, who has cracked down on the news media and been accused of jailing reporters and having them killed, Trump lashed out at the U.S. news media. Saying they would never give him credit for a successful summit, he branded many journalists “the enemy of the people.”

“Unfortunately, no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia, over the years, I would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough — that I should have gotten Saint Petersburg in addition!” Trump said in a pair of tweets. “Much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people.”

The comments appeared to be an effort to pre-empt criticism of his performance at the meeting, and coincided with attempts by members of his administration to lower expectations. Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Russia, said Sunday that the event should not even be called a summit, because the two presidents were not seeking to forge an agreement about any particular topic.

“It isn’t a summit,” Huntsman said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” hours before Trump’s Twitter post calling it just that. “This is a meeting.”

The disconnect in terminology mirrors the gulf between the president and his administration in dealing with Russia: Trump has sought a friendship with Putin, while his administration regards the Russian leader as a dangerous adversary who must be countered.

In recent days, Trump focused his fire on some of the United States’ closest allies during a swing through Europe that included attacks on NATO members during a gathering in Brussels and a slight to Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain on her own soil.

Asked during the CBS interview whom he considered to be his biggest foe globally, Trump named the European Union, citing “what they do to us on trade.” He added: “Now you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe. Russia is a foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically, certainly a foe.”

In response, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, wrote in a sharp riposte on Twitter: “America and the EU are best friends. Whoever says we are foes is spreading fake news.” Before leaving his Turnberry resort in Scotland on Sunday, Trump spent two days golfing and, he said, conducting meetings and calls to prepare for meeting with Putin. Yet Trump does not read detailed briefing materials, and has said he does not believe he needs to prepare for the meeting with his Russian counterpart.

Instead of delivering a stern message to the Russians, as some Republicans and diplomatic officials have hoped, Trump again cast U.S. cybersecurity as a partisan issue rather than a national security matter. He also appeared to jeer the Democratic National Committee over the hacking of its servers.

“We had much better defenses,” Trump told CBS, suggesting that the Russians could not hack the Republican National Committee. “I think the DNC should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked.”

On Sunday, Trump also congratulated Putin on Twitter “for putting on a truly great World Cup Tournament — one of the best ever!”

Trump’s conciliatory tone toward Putin was on display all this past week: As his NATO allies watched in Brussels, he declined to call the Russian leader an enemy or a friend, instead referring to him as a “competitor.”

In a joint news conference with May on Friday, Trump said he would bring up the issue of Russian interference in the election, but he joked about Putin’s denials and again emphasized his wish to get along.

“I will absolutely bring up ‘meddling,'” Trump said as May looked on. “I will absolutely firmly ask the question. And, hopefully, we’ll have a very good relationship with Russia.” The CBS interview was conducted during a week that saw Trump attacking several news outlets for publishing what he described as “fake news” — including his own on-the-record and recorded quotes in The Sun, a British tabloid.

He also targeted individual journalists for trying to ask him questions about his strategy with Russia. At one point, he disparaged an NBC correspondent for asking him whether he was giving Putin the upper hand after a week spent bashing the United States’ closest allies, a prime concern of many experienced diplomats, as well as current and former administration officials.

He said that “the fake news doesn’t want to talk about” his administration’s efforts to increase pressure on Russia for its hostile behavior, including expelling 60 Russian officials from the United States in March over the poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil. “We have been very strong on Russia,” Trump said.

This month, two Britons were poisoned in Amesbury, England, by Novichok, a Soviet-developed nerve agent, near the site of the earlier poisoning, in Salisbury. Britain has blamed Moscow for the attack on the former spy and his daughter in Salisbury. Moscow has strenuously denied any involvement.

One victim of the second poisoning, Dawn Sturgess, died. On Sunday, her 19-year-old son, Ewan Hope, was quoted in The Sunday Mirror as saying: “I don’t share Donald Trump’s politics and I’ll never be a supporter of his, but I would like him to raise mum’s case with the Russian president. We need to get justice for my mum.”

During Trump’s visit to Europe, at least one news personality, Piers Morgan, appeared to have received a respectful audience with Trump. Before a friendly interview on Air Force One on Friday, Morgan, there on behalf of The Daily Mail, toddled around, trying to touch the electronics on a plane that is equipped to allow the president to run a nuclear war from the air. He also tried to sit in a chair designated for the president.

Morgan eventually brought up Putin, asking whether Trump considered him a ruthless dictator.

“I assume he probably is,” Trump replied, adding, “I think we could probably get along very well.”

Trump’s friendly approach contrasted with a harsher stance by members of his administration. In an interview broadcast Sunday morning in the United States, Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, appeared to reject the suggestion that Trump would raise the subject of extradition.

“I think it’s pretty silly for the president to demand something that he can’t get legally,” Bolton said on ABC’s “This Week.” “For the president to demand something that isn’t going to happen puts the president in a weak position.”

Bolton said there were legal obstacles to extraditing Russian citizens, because the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia. “You know, the Russians take the position — you can like it or not like it — that their constitution forbids them to extradite Russian citizens,” he said.

Bolton, who is traveling with Trump, said that one alternative could be to use Interpol, the international law enforcement agency, for “red notices,” or requests for an arrest pending an extradition. He also said he expected the Justice Department to take steps to arrest the Russians.