Despite what has been described as a productive exchange between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, no presidential summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is planned for the immediate future, a US official confirmed Tuesday. The announcement contradicts President Trump’s recent social media declaration of a Budapest meeting within two weeks.
The Monday telephone conversation between the two foreign ministers was originally intended to facilitate arrangements for a Trump-Putin summit. However, American officials have now determined that no additional in-person ministerial meetings are necessary at this stage, effectively postponing any presidential gathering indefinitely.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the US administration official provided a positive assessment of the Rubio-Lavrov call but offered no timeline for when a presidential summit might occur. The Kremlin has adopted a similar non-committal stance, with Russian officials announcing Tuesday that there is no “precise timeframe” for organizing a Trump-Putin meeting.
The confusion surrounding potential summit plans began last Thursday after a telephone conversation between Trump and Putin that the American president initially celebrated as a breakthrough. Trump’s enthusiasm led him to announce on social media that he would meet Putin within two weeks in Budapest, an announcement timed just before his scheduled meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss providing Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles capable of striking deep into Russian territory.
Trump’s approach to Putin has been marked by sudden policy reversals, including the August decision to welcome Putin to Alaska for the Russian leader’s first visit to Western soil since initiating the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. While Trump has repeatedly claimed his personal rapport with Putin would allow him to end the war within a day of returning to the White House, he has recently expressed frustrations in dealing with the Russian president.