Washington DC [US], October 23 : United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday (local time) announced his upcoming diplomatic trip to Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan, highlighting a significant meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.
Trump also revealed that he cancelled a planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing a lack of progress in diplomatic efforts. "It didn't feel right to me," Trump said, adding that he didn't want a "wasted meeting."
"Next week, we'll be going to Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan. In South Korea, I'll be meeting with President Xi of China. We'll have a pretty long meeting scheduled. We can work out a lot of our questions and our doubts and our tremendous assets together... We cancelled the meeting with President Putin. It didn't feel right to me. It didn't feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get, so I cancelled it...," said Trump.
The cancellation of the Putin summit follows Russia's rejection of Trump's proposed ceasefire plan in Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump is optimistic about his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, hoping to leverage their discussion to end the Russia-Ukraine war. He plans to discuss energy and oil with Xi, aiming to pressure Russia into negotiating a peace agreement.
"I will probably be talking about it. What I will really be talking about is how we would end the war with Russia and Ukraine, whether through energy, oil or anything else. I think he (Xi Jinping) is going to be very receptive. I think he would like to see the war end," Trump said while interacting with presspersons in the White House, where he hosted NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Notably, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is scheduled to take place in South Korea from October 30 to November 1 in Gyeongju.
President Trump further said that he is hopeful that the Chinese President can have a "big influence" on Putin to urge him to a ceasefire.
"I think he will have a big influence on Putin. I think he can have a big influence on a lot of people. He is a respected man, a very strong leader, very big country, I think he can have a big influence," Trump added.
Trump claimed that his predecessors, former Presidents Joseph Biden and Barack Obama "forced" Russia and China together.
"China is a little bit different. A little bit different relationship they had with Russia. It was never good but because of Biden and Obama they got forced together, they never should have been forced together but by nature they can't be friendly. I hope they are friendly, frankly. You should not have forced China and Russia together. Biden did that and Obama did that. They forced them together because of energy, oil", he said.
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