Trump cancels meeting with Putin in Budapest

U.S. President Donald Trump said he canceled his planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was to take place in Budapest.

“We canceled the meeting with President Putin. I just felt it wasn’t right. We wouldn’t have achieved the desired result, so I called it off. But the meeting will happen in the future,” Trump said at a press briefing with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

The U.S. leader noted that his talks with Putin “always go well but lead to no concrete results.” According to Trump, “Putin wants everything at once, not step by step,” and is currently “not ready for negotiations.”

Trump expressed hope that “Putin will come to his senses — and Zelensky too, hopefully,” adding, “It takes two to negotiate.”

He said Russia and Ukraine should freeze their current positions on the battlefield and stop fighting.

Commenting on new sanctions against Russia, Trump said, “I felt it was time. We’ve waited long enough.”

Trump added that the United States possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, followed by Russia and China, though China “could reach parity in four to five years.”

The Budapest meeting had been agreed upon during a phone call between Trump and Putin on October 16, but no date was finalized. Later, Financial Times and The Telegraph reported that the summit was canceled after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on October 20.