President Donald Trump left Washington Wednesday to embark on a four day trip to Europe in which he is scheduled to finally meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and deliver a major speech in Poland.
This is the president’s second foreign trip as President, and he will meet with 12 Central European and Baltic leaders at the Three Seas conference before attending his first Group of 20 (G20) summit in Hamburg. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters last week that the objectives of President Trump’s trip are “to promote American prosperity, to protect American interests, and to provide American leadership.”
Trump will meet with several world leaders at the G20 Summit on Friday and Saturday including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump’s meeting with Putin, in particular, is highly anticipated as the two have never met and an ongoing investigation into Russian election interference has been a constant cloud over the White House.
President Trump has previously said he hopes to develop stronger ties with Russia. McMaster said last week, “as the President has made clear, he’d like the United States and the entire West to develop a more constructive relationship with Russia. But he’s also made clear that we will do what is necessary to confront Russia’s destabilizing behavior.”
Trump’s Thursday speech in Warsaw’s Krasinksi Square is also highly anticipated.
“He will praise Polish courage throughout history’s darkest hour, and celebrate Poland’s emergence as a European power,” McMaster said. “And he will call on all nations to take inspiration from the spirit of the Poles as we confront today’s challenges. He will lay out a vision, not only for America’s future relationship with Europe, but the future of our transatlantic alliance and what that means for American security and American prosperity.”
Poland is ruled by a conservative populist party and has rejected refugee resettlement. The Weekly Standard reported that Trump’s speech was primarily written by White House adviser Stephen Miller, and that it will contrast Poland’s policies with the globalist ones of Western European powers.