Trump: Relationship with Russia ‘may be at an all-time low’ ‘Right now, we’re not getting along with Russia at all,’ the president says at a news conference.

President Donald Trump said that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday went better than expected, but that the U.S. relationship with Russia remains at “an all-time low.”

“Right now, we’re not getting along with Russia at all,” Trump said Wednesday at a joint news conference alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. "We may be at an all-time low in terms of our relationship with Russia."


The comments were similar to those from Tillerson, who, following a previously unannounced meeting with Putin, said that U.S.-Russia relations were at a “low point." Tensions have flared between the two countries in recent weeks after the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a Russian ally, used chemical weapons against civilians last week, which prompted Trump to launch retaliatory airstrikes.

But the remarks also seemed to skip over the Cold War in the second half of the 20th century, during which the Soviet Union and the United States teetered on the brink of nuclear war.

“We don’t want a new Cold War,” Stoltenberg said a few seconds later. “We don’t want a new arms race.”

Trump said it would be “fantastic” if the U.S. and Russia could have better relations, and said his opinion about Putin might change over time. But he would not say what he thought that future relationship might look like, saying only that “we’re going to see what happens.”

“It would be a fantastic thing if we got along with Putin and if we got along with Russia,” Trump said. “And that could happen, and it may not happen, and it may be just the opposite. I can only tell you what I would like to do. I would love to be able to get along with everybody.”

“Right now, the world is a mess, but I think by the time we finish, I think it’s going to be a lot better place to live,” he added. “And I can tell you that, speaking for myself, by the time I’m finished, it’s going to be a lot better place to live in because right now, it’s nasty.”

