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The US President is expected to speak to the Greek prime minister in the coming days. The substance of the call, according to well-placed sources, will be Greece’s ongoing negotiations with creditors and the role the International Monetary Fund may or may not play in the country’s current rescue programme.



Donald Trump has publicly tweeted that he thinks the Greeks are “wasting their time” staying in the eurozone. As the largest shareholder in the IMF, with a 17% share of the body’s voting power, Washington has effective veto power over many decisions. The IMF has yet to sign up to Greece’s third bailout programme, with Germany and the Netherlands saying its participation is vital if further emergency loans are to be disbursed to the debt-stricken country.

“The government is attaching great significance to the conversation in its bid to get a clearer picture of Trump’s position on several issues, not least the Greek bailout program,” the Kathimerini news paper wrote today.



With tensions also rising in the Aegean between regional rivals Greece and Turkey, Athens is also placing stock in Washington’s interventionist powers, diplomats say.

President Barack Obama, who chose to give his farewell speech abroad in the Greek capital, was aggressively supportive of Greece remaining in the single currency, stepping in when the country came closest yet to leaving the euro six months after Tsipras assumed power in mid-2015.

Trump’s Whitehouse chief of staff Reince Priebus, who is of Greek descent, told a visiting Greek delegation ahead of the president’s swearing-in that the new administration was determined to “fix Greece”, although he failed to make clear whether he meant in or out of the eurozone.