page_title: 2018 Russia–United States summit
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: 2018 Russia–United States summit / Background
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Präsidentenpalast Helsinki
context_page_description: The 2018 Russia–United States summit was a summit meeting between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 16, 2018, in Helsinki, Finland. The Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs officially titled the summit as the #HELSINKI2018 Meeting and it was hosted by the President of Finland Sauli Niinistö.
  During a post-summit joint press conference with Putin, Trump did not accept Russian interference was part of the 2016 U.S. elections. Trump's omissions provoked an uproar across the political spectrum, including from some of his usual allies. One day later, Trump amended part of his remarks, contending that he had misspoken due to an incorrectly perceived "double-negative".
  Although the proceedings of the summit were orderly and diplomatic, both Trump and Putin were received poorly by both sides of the political spectrum in America, with some commentators saying that the summit became the event where Putin "cemented his status, and the status of his country, as public enemy #1 in America," ushering in the lowest point of Russian-American relations since the early 1980s.
context_section_description: The summit was officially called the #HELSINKI2018 Meeting by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was hosted by the President of Finland Sauli Niinistö. The summit took place in the Presidential Palace and marked the first official meeting between the leaders after previous unofficial talks between Trump and Putin at the G20 Hamburg and APEC Vietnam summits held in 2017. Topics Trump announced to be discussed at the summit included the situations in Syria and Ukraine. The United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met his Russian and Finnish counterparts Sergey Lavrov and Timo Soini.
  Niinistö held bilateral meetings with both presidents on the day of the summit. That morning, Niinistö and Finnish First Lady Jenni Haukio welcomed Trump and U.S. First Lady Melania Trump at their main official residence in Mäntyniemi. During the presidents' meeting, the two women met for a joint breakfast.
  The #HELSINKI2018 meeting began at the Presidential Palace after midday (at approximately 1 pm) with Niinistö officially welcoming Putin, followed by Trump. The bilateral discussions between the Americans and Russian presidents took place in the Presidential Palace's Gothic Hall; Trump and Putin met with only interpreters present. Their meeting was followed by a working lunch including additional officials in the Hall of Mirrors.
  NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said they welcomed Trump's planned meeting with Vladimir Putin.
  On July 13, 2018, three days before the summit, Rod Rosenstein, the United States Deputy Attorney General, announced indictments of twelve Russian GRU officers for their efforts in the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak, through the establishment of false identities as DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, as well as charges of money laundering using bitcoin. The timing of these indictments led to closer scrutiny of the upcoming meeting and pressure for Trump to discuss election meddling with Putin. Bloomberg News reported the day after the summit that Trump permitted the indictments to be announced prior to the summit hoping it would strengthen his position in negotiations with Putin.
  Two days before the scheduled meeting, a group of top Senate Democrats urged Trump to not meet with Putin one-on-one. Signers of a letter advising him not to meet alone with Putin included Minority Leader Charles Schumer, Minority Whip Dick Durbin, and the top Democrats on the Senate Intelligence (Mark Warner), Foreign Relations (Bob Menendez), Judiciary (Dianne Feinstein), Armed Services (Jack Reed), Appropriations (Patrick Leahy), and Banking (Sherrod Brown) committees.
caption: The Presidential Palace in Helsinki, the venue of the summit
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