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Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday night that the summit meeting he succeeded with with Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “good day for Russia” and added, “I don’t see what we got out of it.”
“We got nothing. We gave Russia a very big stage, and we got nothing,” Trump told Fox News’ Hannity Channel. “We gave away something of incredible value. Pipeline stopped, Nord Stream [2]This pipeline has stopped. It was returned and nothing was obtained for it.”
The Biden administration announced last month that it had waived sanctions against the Russian-owned, Switzerland-based Nord Stream 2AG, which is overseeing the construction of a natural gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany under the Black Sea. Lawmakers of both parties view Nord Stream 2 as a security risk that undermines NATO and American interests by linking Germany more closely to Russia and depriving Ukraine of key revenue.
“I think going ahead and imposing sanctions now would be counterproductive now in terms of our European relations. They know how strong I feel. I hope we can work on how to deal with it from that point on,” Biden told reporters on May 26.
Trump, who imposed the sanctions when he signed the annual defense bill in late 2019, has criticized Germany and America’s other European allies for turning to Russia for their energy needs.
Former President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at 2018 Bloomberg via Getty Images
“I went to Germany and said, ‘Listen, we’re protecting you with NATO at a very low cost’… We have 52,000 soldiers there, and it’s frankly a big city. They make a fortune with us, and then they go and pay Russia billions and billions of dollars for energy.”
So I said, ‘Let’s put things right – to Angela [Merkel] – I said: We protect you and the people we protect, the country, you pay billions of dollars. How does this work?'”
The former president went on to claim that European countries “spoil us on trade. That is the only word that really describes enough, because in many ways they are worse than China, or as bad as China at trade.”
President Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin met in Geneva, weeks after Biden lifted sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
How many Chevrolet cars are sold in Berlin? not much. How many Chevrolet cars are sold in Paris? Not much, maybe nothing. However, we sell their products – their wine, their cars, their Mercedes, their BMWs and everything else – we sell it all over our country.”
Referring to the summit between Biden and Putin, Trump told host Sean Hannity that he “gets on well” with the Russian leader.
“I think we have a great opportunity to have an incredible relationship with Russia,” the former president said. It would have been really good for both countries. You know, they need the economy and we need the things that they have. They have very valuable land in terms of mining rights and a lot of other things, and a lot of good things could have happened.
“I had a very good relationship with Putin, but no one treated him more harshly.”
Trump said he got on well with Putin while criticizing Biden for waiving sanctions against Nord Stream 2 AG Bloomberg via Getty Images.
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