Trump exchanges "pleasantries" with Saudi crown prince at G-20 summit — live updates
President Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman exchanged "pleasantries" at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a White House official told reporters at the summit.
Mr. Trump told reporters on his way to Argentina Thursday he would have met with the crown prince, but a meeting wasn't set up. The president has insisted the U.S. stands with Saudi Arabia, despite the CIA's conclusion that the crown prince ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr. Trump insists it's impossible to know what happened, and claims the CIA never reached any conclusions.
Asked what he and the crown prince discussed, Mr. Trump told reporters Friday they didn't discuss anything.
The president canceled a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, citing Russian aggression against Ukraine. On Friday, the White House said there were no plans for a Putin meeting, but Mr. Trump didn't rule out the possibility of exchanging pleasantries with him.
"I don't know. Not particularly. I don't know," Mr. Trump responded when asked if he and Putin would exchange pleasantries.
The crown prince and Putin greeted each other happily at the summit, in a handshake that went viral.
Earlier in the day Friday, Mr. Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto signed their intention to move ahead with their new trade pact.
Much of the president's reasoning for changing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was his claim that the agreement was so widely despised, and needed to be renamed. Mr. Trump calls it the "United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement," or "USMCA." But Trudeau declined to call it the "USMCA" Friday, calling it instead the new North American Free Trade Agreement. Trudeau called out Mr. Trump by first name, asking him to lower the newly imposed steel and aluminum tariffs.
"Donald, it is all the more reason we need to keep working to remove the steel and aluminum tariffs between our countries," Trudeau said.
The trade agreement still has to be approved by each nation's legislatures, although the president expressed optimism about his chances in Congress. Democrats take control of the House in January.
"It's been well-reviewed. I don't expect to have much of a problem," Mr. Trump said of his expectations for the agreement in Congress.
The president's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, was honored by the Mexican government for his role in what Mr. Trump calls the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The Mexican government awarded him with the "Order of the Aztec Eagle" for his work on the trade deal.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has been blasting special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in the wake of Thursday's guilty plea by his longtime former lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen admitted in federal court Thursday that he lied to Congress about a Trump project proposal in Moscow. Mr. Trump says Cohen is a "weak" person who "is lying" to get a lighter sentence.
Cohen's testimony could prove troublesome for Mr. Trump, who is listed as "Individual 1" in Cohen's guilty plea. Cohen claimed he made the misstatements to Congress "to be consistent with Individual 1's political messaging and out of loyalty to Individual 1."
Mr. Trump spent part of his morning in Buenos Aires fuming over the Moscow proposal and "witch hunt" Russia probe on Twitter.
"Oh, I get it! I am a very good developer, happily living my life, when I see our Country going in the wrong direction (to put it mildly). Against all odds, I decide to run for President & continue to run my business-very legal & very cool, talked about it on the campaign trail.......Lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia," he tweeted. "Put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn't do the project. Witch Hunt!"