Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s decision to skip a NATO meeting in Europe next month and later travel to Russia has raised fresh questions about the Trump administration’s foreign policy priorities. Partly to help make diplomatic preparations for Xi’s first meeting with Trump, Tillerson met the Chinese leader in Beijing last week on the final leg of a trip that also took him to Seoul and Tokyo. Hammond said on Twitter that Tillerson would see most of the NATO foreign ministers in Washington this week at an unrelated diplomatic conference that will focus on efforts to defeat Islamic State. Trump repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and called for warmer relations with Moscow before he took office. State Department officials declined to say if Tillerson would meet Putin on his visit to Moscow.

Source: Los Angeles Times March 21, 2017 20:48 UTC