Donald Trump has called off expected bilateral talks with Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires amid increasing tensions surrounding the Russia-Ukraine crisis and explosive reports the president's former lawyer lied about a Trump Tower project in Moscow.
As world leaders began to arrive in Argentina ahead of the start of the summit on Friday, tensions surround Russia's current stand-off with Ukraine over the Kerch Strait in the Sea of Azov, where the Russian navy captured three of its neighbours vessels over a territorial dispute on Sunday. Mr Trump tweeted while on his way to the annual summit that he was cancelling his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, writing, "Based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia, I have decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting in Argentina with President Vladimir Putin."
German chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to address the situation, which has seen Ukraine implement martial law in 10 regions, before Mr Trump and Mr Putin sit down on Saturday, as well as other worlds leaders, who plan to discuss the conflict along with a multitude of other high-profile global concerns. But, in a quirk that shows that international travel is never easy, Ms Merkel's plane was forced to make an unexpected landing in Germany — and she will not be able to attend the opening of the G20 summit.
Beyond the situation in Ukraine, the stakes are high for those attending, and that is especially true for Mr Trump, who is hoping to finish signing a reworked trade deal with Canada and Mexico — and find common ground with China to try to divert a potential escalation in trade relations that has already led to tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in imports for both countries. Days before the G20, Mr Trump suggested that failure to negotiate adequately during a dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping could lead to even further tariffs.
Meanwhile, the meeting is the first high profile meeting of world leaders since the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi officials in Turkey, and world leaders are taking varied approaches in how they deal with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been accused of overseeing the murder of the journalist. Mr Trump is not expected to meet with the crown prince, while French President Emmanuel Macron is going ahead with a meeting. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that he would not schedule a meeting with the Saudi leader.
In Buenos Aires, security has ben ramped up as officials prepare for the high profile summit, and residents of the city have been advised to take a long weekend away if possible. Meanwhile, thousands of anti-capitalist protesters are expected in the city.
What is martial law and why has it been declared in Ukraine?
President Petro Poroshenko reacts to naval conflict on Sea of Azov after neighbour's ships capture three Ukrainian vessels along Kerch Strait
Russia formally charges Ukrainian servicemen as tensions increase after naval clash off Crimea
Kiev is enacting martial law in 10 border regions, following the Russian seizure of three of its military vesselsThe prime minister is joining leaders including US president Donald Trump, China's Xi Jinping and Japan's Shinzo Abe at the annual summit of the G20 group of leading economies in Argentina.
The long-running dispute over the Falkland Islands - still claimed as Las Malvinas by Argentina, 36 years after the 1982 war - is likely to be discussed in a one-on-one meeting with Argentina's president Mauricio Macri but is not thought likely to dominate the talks, which will focus on trade.
Among some of the topics Chinese and US officials may discuss at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires are the young Americans reportedly trapped in Beijing, where they say they have been refused permission to leave since June.
Chinese authorities may allegedly be using Sandra Han and her two children, 19-year-old Victor and 27-year-old Cynthia Liu, to press her husband, Liu Changming to return to the country. Mr Changming is wanted by law enforcement on numerous financial crime charges.
Both children hold US passports, and Victor Liu was born in the United States. This week, National Security Adviser John Bolton tweeted, “These Americans need to be allowed to return home."
A spokesperson for the Chinese commerce ministry said they are hoping for “positive results” from high-profile meetings with the United States, where the nations’ shared trade disputes are expected to be among the top priorities.
“I hope that the United States and China could move towards each other and work hard to achieve positive results in the meeting,” spokesperson Gao Feng told Reuters.
Officials from both countries have reportedly been in contact since a phone call between Chinese President Xi JinPing and US President Donald Trump in which the ministry said a “consensus” was reached.
The Associated Press has an inside look at Donald Trump’s jam-packed 48-hours on the ground in Buenos Aires during the G20 summit, in which the president is expected to partake in at least eight meetings with foreign leaders:
International summits are taxing events for any leader, but Trump has made his visit even more so by design, as the travel-averse president looks to minimize his time abroad.
The schedule this week is so tight that a scheduled one-on-one meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will morph into a "trilateral" when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi joins them midway.
Trump earlier this month canceled a planned stop in Colombia, citing unspecified scheduling concerns, but his public schedule does not reveal any significant conflicts.
Wall Street investors are cautiously following the high-profile talks between US and Chinese officials at the G20 summit this week, with Thursday’s futures set to open with a slight dip.
“The market is taking a bit of a pause after a significant rally yesterday, and are in anticipation of the G20 Summit this week,” Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley FBR in New York, told Reuters. “It is very difficult to make a prediction as to how the commentary out of G20 might go. When you don’t know, you tend to take a risk-off stance.”
Analysts have noted there likely may not be an official readout or joint statement surrounding the high-profile meetings between Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi JinPing at this year’s G20 summit in Buenos Aires.
The two world leaders are expected to discuss a range of priority issues during a dinner at the annual summit, though there is no scheduled press conference thereafter.
Both nations are expected to provided their own version of events shortly after the meeting takes place, sources told the South China Morning Post.
Justin Trudeau has tweeted the following message upon landing in Buenos Aires for the G20 summit.
“Lots of work ahead of us focused on trade, job creation, gender equality & climate change,” the Canadian prime minister wrote.
As international leaders come together to focus on resolving some of the world’s most important issues, one United Nations official is stressing the need for talks to include the global housing crisis. Here’s the latest via Reuters:
Leaders of the world’s richest countries must urgently fix the global housing crisis and stop treating residential property as a commodity like gold or oil, a top U.N. official said on Thursday ahead of the G20 summit.
Leilani Farha, U.N. special rapporteur on adequate housing, also accused governments of “collective amnesia” over the root causes of the 2008 financial disaster.
At least 150 million people, about 2 percent of the global population, are homeless, according to United Nations data, and more than a fifth of the population lacks adequate housing.
“In 10 years, the G20 leaders have yet to address the housing crisis that was at the heart of the financial crisis and that has only worsened since,” Farha said in a statement as leaders gathered in Buenos Aires for the summit. “One can hardly consider the world economy to be stable when millions of people ... struggle to find and maintain an adequate and affordable place to live, and one quarter of the world’s urban population lives in informal settlements.”
Peter Navarro, a controversial trade adviser to Donald Trump, may attend a dinner the US president is having with Chinese President Xi JinPing, along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and several others, South China Morning Post reports.
Mr Navarro was previously expected not to attend the dinner. Analysts see the adviser as a roadblock to resolving the ongoing trade dispute between China and the United States.
"I like the deal we have now," Mr Trump said as he was leaving the White House to head to Argentina. Mr Trump is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping about ways to ease an escalating trade war.
Both sides have raised tariffs on billions of dollars of each other's goods over the last few months.
A day before Canada, the United States and Mexico are due to sign a new trade pact, the three sides are still finalising some of the details, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has said.
Ms Freeland, speaking to reporters in Buenos Aires, said Canada was on track to sign the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement on Friday. Canadian officials would be speaking to their US and Mexican counterparts later on Thursday, she added.
Donald Trump has cancelled expected talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit Buenos Aires, sharing the following message on Twitter:
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