BREAKING: Trump Makes Surprise Putin Announcement

BREAKING: Trump Makes Surprise Putin Announcement
November 5, 2017
https://www.conservativeinstitute.org/foreign-policy/trump-makes-putin-announcement.htm?
BREAKING: Trump Makes Surprise Putin Announcement
Gage Skidmore / CCL; Image Source: Screenshot
President Donald Trump has arrived in Japan as part of his first presidential tour of Asia, a trip on which he is also expected to visit South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. During the 13-day tour, Trump announced he may meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“I think it’s expected we’ll meet with Putin, yeah,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to Japan.

“We want Putin’s help on North Korea, and we’ll be meeting with a lot of different leaders,” he continued.

A Common Enemy
The face to face meeting would likely happen in Vietnam later this week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, amid heightening global tensions around the North Korea crisis.

A senior White House official told reporters in Tokyo that North Korea would be a “primary subject” of conversation if Trump and Putin meet, saying:

Russia borders North Korea. They also are very concerned, I think, with the direction North Korea is leading the region toward, into this crisis. And naturally, Russia should have a role in that future. Russia has obligations as a UN member to upholding United Nations Security Council resolutions…including the sanctions passed earlier this year.
Uniting Asia
Putin will be just one of the world leaders Trump hopes to encourage into a more aggressive stance against Pyongyang during his 13-day international tour. Prior to the stop in Vietnam, Trump will have already met with U.S. allies in the region to ramp up pressure on the North Korean regime.

He is scheduled to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and Chinese President Xi Jingping before arriving in Da Nang.

Trump even said that he’d “be open” to meeting with the North Korean dictator in an interview this morning, although he qualified that it was unlikely to happen anytime soon.

I would sit down with anybody. I don’t think it’s strength or weakness, I think sitting down with people is not a bad thing.

So I would certainly be open to doing that but we’ll see where it goes, I think we’re far too early.
In light of a new and troubling report from the Pentagon, the pressure to resolve the North Korea threat is increasing.

According to the letter, written by Rear Adm. Michael J. Dumont, “the only way to locate and secure all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons sites ‘with complete certainty’ is through an invasion of ground forces, and in the event of conflict, Pyongyang could use biological and chemical weapons,” reported The Washington Post.

Trump’s move to reach out to the Kremlin at a time of heightened aggression from North Korea is a strategic move forward in navigating the U.S. through the new Pacific theater.