page_title: Donald Trump
section_title: Russia
hierarchical_section_title: Donald Trump / Presidency / Foreign policy / Russia
caption_attribution_description: President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin during the G20 Japan Summit Friday, June 28, 2019, in Osaka, Japan. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
context_page_description: Donald John Trump is the 45th and current president of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality.
  Trump was born and raised in Queens, a borough of New York City. He attended Fordham University for two years and received a bachelor's degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He became president of his father's real-estate business in 1971, renamed it The Trump Organization, and expanded its operations to building or renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. Trump later started various side ventures, mostly by licensing his name. He bought the Miss Universe brand of beauty pageants in 1996 and sold it in 2015. Trump and his businesses have been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, including six bankruptcies. He produced and hosted The Apprentice, a reality television series, from 2003 to 2015. As of April 2020, Forbes estimated his net worth to be $2.1 billion.
  Trump's political positions have been described as populist, protectionist, and nationalist.
context_section_description: During his campaign and as president, Trump has repeatedly asserted that he desires better relations with Russia. He also said Russia could help the U.S. in its fight against ISIS. According to Putin and some political experts and diplomats, the U.S.–Russian relations, which were already at the lowest level since the end of the Cold War, have further deteriorated since Trump took office in January 2017.
  As president, Trump has criticized Russia about Syria, Ukraine, North Korea, Venezuela, and the Skripal poisoning, but has sent mixed messages regarding Crimea. He forbade U.S. oil companies from drilling in Russia. Businesses involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany have been sanctioned by the Trump administration with the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 on December 20, 2019. Trump said the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, owned by Russia's Gazprom, could turn Germany into a "hostage of Russia".
  Amidst continuing growth of China's missile forces, Trump announced in October 2018 that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty due to supposed Russian non-compliance, a move criticized by the former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who signed the treaty in 1987 with U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
  Trump has repeatedly praised Russian president Vladimir Putin; criticism of Putin by Trump was uncommon. As a presidential candidate, Trump continually described Putin as a strong leader. When Putin in August 2017 expelled over half of the staff of the American embassy in Russia in retaliation for Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which imposed new sanctions on Russia, Trump responded by thanking Putin, saying "We'll save a lot of money," instead of criticizing him. After Trump met Putin at the Helsinki Summit on July 16, 2018, Trump drew bipartisan criticism for siding with Putin's denial of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, rather than accepting the findings of the United States intelligence community.
caption: Putin and Trump at the G20 Osaka summit, June 2019
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