President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the APEC Summit in Danang, Vietnam, November 11, 2017 (Jorge Silva/Reuters)

President Trump says he is rooting for the U.S. to have a good relationship with Russia, but all bets are off.

“Nobody’s been tougher on Russia than I have,” Trump told reporters at a joint press conference with heads of state from the Baltic Tuesday. “With that being said, I think I could have a very good relationship with President Putin…There’s also a great possibility that that won’t happen. Who knows?”

“Getting along with other countries, including your three countries, is a good thing, not a bad thing,” the president added, gesturing to the leaders of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. “I think we’ll be able to have great dialogue, I hope, and if we can’t, you’ll be the first to know about it.”


The three leaders visited the White House to ask the U.S. and NATO for additional military assistance to combat the influence of Russia.


“It is important that [U.S. troops] are here on a permanent rotational basis in all Baltic states,” said Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite prior to the meeting.

Trump has come under fire for what critics see as an overly friendly attitude toward Russia, and his 2016 campaign is under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller for possible collusion with the Kremlin.

The president listed moves his administration has taken that he said are not in Russia’s interest. He claimed that the U.S. is now “essentially energy-independent,” which is “not a positive for Russia,” and that the administration is taking steps to make the American military stronger than ever, which is also “not exactly a great thing for Russia.”

Trump recently expelled 60 Russian diplomats in retaliation for the Kremlin’s poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain. Canada, Britain, and other European countries also expelled several Russian diplomats at the same time, in a coordinated response to the attack.

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