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President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday his team was working with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“He wants a meeting. We are arranging it,” he told reporters at a news conference on Putin at Mar-a-Lago. “President Xi – we have a lot of communication. We have a lot of meetings with a lot of people.
“I would rather wait until after the 20th,” he added of his inauguration date later this month.
“President Putin wants to meet,” Trump added. “We must end this war.”
Then-President Donald Trump, right, shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Friday, June 28, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
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Trump noted that casualty rates in Russia and Ukraine were “appalling” and suggested civilian casualties could also be much higher than reported.
The Kremlin confirmed Trump’s remarks on Friday and said it was prepared to “solve the issue through dialogue,” Russian news agency TASS reported.
Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, General Keith Kelloggtold Fox Digital News that he has set a goal of ending the war in Ukraine within 100 days of taking the top job.
Kellogg described the war as a “bloodbath” but said he believed Trump could end it “in the short term.”
The retired three-star general told Fox News’ “Report for America” on Thursday that he and Trump would ensure the ceasefire was “fair” and “equitable,” although he did not elaborate on what that meant. Withdraw Russian troops from Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.
Former President Donald Trump (right) meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York, Friday, September 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Julia DeMarie Nicholson)
Trump gave no details on how he planned to end the three-year war, though he said he could support Putin’s request to ban Ukraine from joining the NATO alliance, telling reporters on Thursday that he “can understand how (Putin) feels. “Hopefully NATO will be at their doorstep.”
Before the invasion of Ukraine, there were already four countries on Moscow’s borders that were members of the International Security Alliance, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Finland subsequently joined NATO in 2023 and applied for membership just 3 months after the invasion on February 22, 2022.
Moscow and Kyiv have made it clear that the regulations Ukraine’s NATO membership There is no room for negotiation.
On June 29, 2019, then-President Trump (left) met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Trump did not elaborate on when he would meet the Chinese president, and it was unclear whether Xi Jinping planned to meet with him in person.
Trump reportedly invited Xi to his inauguration, but Beijing said it would send a high-level envoy, more in line with tradition.
In his last meeting with President Biden in November last year, Xi Jinping expressed his willingness to cooperate with the former and incoming US president.
However, Trump, who said in late November that he and Xi “love each other” Commitment to impose 60% tariff on China He then said this week that he would consider military action to seize the Panama Canal, which the United States returned to Panama in 1979 before ending the two countries’ partnership in controlling the strategic passage in 1999.
“The Panama Canal is vital to our country and it is operated by China. We gave the Panama Canal to Panama, but we did not give it to China,” he added.
On December 28, 2024, the Marshall Islands cargo ship Cape Hellas and the Portuguese cargo ship MSC Elma sailed in Lake Gatun near the Agua Clara Lock of the Panama Canal in Colon City, Panama. (Arnulfo Franco/AFP via Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital could not immediately reach the Panamanian embassy in Washington for comment.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a question from Fox News Digital about concerns about triggering a military confrontation with China in Panama.
