“We just canceled the meeting with President Putin," Trump said.
"I felt we would not get to where we needed to get, so I canceled it, but we’ll do it in the future.”
The U.S. president also noted that, although talks with Putin “are sometimes good,” they ultimately “just go nowhere.”
“I think honestly the only thing I can say is that every time I speak with Vladimir [Russian dictator Putin - ed.], we have good conversations. And then they go nowhere. They just go nowhere,” he said.
Why the Trump–Putin meeting in Budapest mattered?
On Oct. 16, President Trump held a phone call with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and following that call he announced a new meeting with him in Budapest.
The U.S. leader said that, in addition to talks with Russia that are to take place within two weeks and cover, among other things, Ukraine, Vice President J. D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special representative Steve Witkoff will join the negotiations.
On Oct. 21, CNN, citing a White House representative, reported that a meeting between the U.S. secretary of state and Russia’s foreign minister scheduled for this week was postponed “for a while.”
Later that same day an NBC News reporter said planning for the Trump–Putin meeting had been put on hold.
On Oct. 21, the Financial Times, citing sources, wrote that Rubio and Lavrov were due to arrive in Budapest on Oct. 30.
A possible summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin in Budapest raised concern in European capitals because Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long been an ally of Russia and a critic of the EU, the outlet concluded.
Unnamed diplomats told Reuters that Russia’s refusal to immediately agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine appears to have jeopardized the planned Trump–Putin meeting.