Off-the-cuff diplomacy made it difficult to work out what was agreed but some details have emerged in wake of meetings. No communique was issued following the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki, underlining the off-the-cuff informal diplomacy in which Donald Trump specialises.
The absence of an agreed statement leaves secret the status and extent of any practical agreements reached either between the US president and his Russian counterpart or in the later wider meeting between officials. Putin, in his Fox interview, argued Russia was too large a country to be sanctioned and isolated, but Trump was not asked in the press conference about the future status of sanctions.
Putin appears to be banking on a working party consisting of captains of industry to open a dialogue on future economic relations, pointing out US trade into the Russian market is minuscule in comparison with European trade.
Putin is hopeful that business voices will call for sanctions to be lifted. The single greatest barrier to sanctions being lifted remains the Russian annexation of Crimea. Putin in his Fox News Interview said he and Trump had disagreed about the status of Crimea and in effect, the two men agreed to differ.
The Putin position is that Crimeans voted in a referendum to return to Russia, and this vote should be accepted, just as the Falkland Islanders voted in a referendum to remain part of the UK. On the wider issue of Ukraine, Putin said he had urged Trump to put pressure on Ukraine to do more to comply with the Minsk accords. He also laid down a marker that Ukraine must never join Nato.
