Trump Calls E.U. a Trade ‘Foe’; Says He ‘Hadn’t Thought’ About Seeking Russian Extraditions

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President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during the Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, in 2017.CreditMarcellus Stein/Associated Press

By Katie Rogers

July 15, 2018

KILMARNOCK, Scotland — President Trump, adding to the list of allies he has clashed with this past week, said in an interview released on Sunday that he considered the European Union a trade “foe,” days after a contentious NATO summit meeting and on the eve of closely watched talks with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Mr. Trump made the remarks in an interview Saturday with “CBS Evening News,” during which he also said that he “hadn’t thought” about asking for the extradition of the 12 Russian intelligence officers indicted on charges of hacking Democratic Party organizations in an effort to influence the 2016 election.

“Well, I might,” Mr. Trump said during the interview, conducted by the anchor Jeff Glor at the president’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland. “But I certainly, I’ll be asking about it.”

The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia.

Regarding his views on trade, “Now you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe.” Mr. Trump told CBS. “Russia is a foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically, certainly a foe.”

In response, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, in a sharp riposte on Twitter, wrote: “America and the E.U. are best friends. Whoever says we are foes is spreading fake news.”

Before leaving his Turnberry resort in Scotland on Sunday, Mr. Trump spent two days golfing and, he said, taking meetings and calls in preparation for the meeting with Mr. Putin in Helsinki, Finland. Instead of delivering a stern message to the Russians, as some Republicans and diplomatic officials have hoped he would, Mr. Trump again cast American cybersecurity as a partisan issue rather than a national one. He also appeared to jeer the hacking of the Democratic National Committee servers.

“We had much better defenses,” Mr. Trump said, suggesting that the Russians could not hack the Republican National Committee. “I think the D.N.C. should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked.”

The president has given a series of interviews and news conferences during his European trip this past week at a NATO summit meeting in Brussels and during a working visit to England. In each, he has sought to play down the meeting with Mr. Putin. He has also declined to harshly criticize the Russian president ahead of their scheduled one-on-one meeting. The two are scheduled to hold a joint news conference after they meet.

As his NATO allies watched in Brussels, Mr. Trump declined to call Mr. Putin an enemy or a friend, but referred to him as a “competitor.” And in a joint news conference with Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain on Friday, Mr. Trump said that he would bring up the issue of Russian meddling in the election. But he again emphasized his wish to get along with Mr. Putin, among other leaders whose actions have been hostile to the NATO alliance.

“I will absolutely bring up ‘meddling,’ ” Mr. Trump said as Mrs. May looked on. “Hopefully, we will have a very good relationship with Russia, China and other countries.”

The CBS interview was conducted during a week that saw Mr. Trump publicly lashing out at several news outlets for publishing what he described as “fake news” — including his own on-the-record and recorded quotes in The Sun, a British tabloid.

He also targeted individual journalists for trying to ask him questions about his strategy with Russia. At one point, he disparaged an NBC journalist for asking him whether he was giving Mr. Putin the upper hand after a week spent bashing the United States’ closest allies.

Mr. Trump’s interview with “CBS Evening News” was conducted on Saturday by the anchor Jeff Glor at the president’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.CreditAndrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated Press

He said that “the fake news doesn’t want to talk about” his administration’s efforts to increase pressure on Russia for its hostile behavior, including expelling 60 Russian officials from the United States in March over the poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil.

“We have been very strong on Russia,” Mr. Trump said.

This month, two Britons were poisoned in Amesbury, England, by Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent, near the site of the earlier poisoning, in Salisbury, England. Britain has blamed Moscow for the attack on the former Russian spy and his daughter in Salisbury. Moscow has strenuously denied any involvement.

One victim of the second poisoning, Dawn Sturgess, died. On Sunday, her 19-year-old son, Ewan Hope, was quoted in The Sunday Mirror as saying: “I don’t share Donald Trump’s politics and I’ll never be a supporter of his, but I would like him to raise mum’s case with the Russian president. We need to get justice for my mum.”

During his whirlwind tour of Europe this past week, at least one news personality appeared to have received a respectful audience with Mr. Trump. Ahead of a friendly interview on Air Force One on Friday, Piers Morgan, there on behalf of The Daily Mail, toddled around, trying to touch the electronics on a plane that is equipped to allow the president to run a nuclear war from the air. He also tried to sit in a chair designated for the president.

After marveling over the Trump-branded M&Ms he found on the plane, Mr. Morgan met with the president, discussing his “uniquely impulsive and charismatic” healthier diet (baked salmon and a lemon bar), the first lady, Melania Trump — “I hope she never runs against me,” he said — and Mr. Trump’s audience with Queen Elizabeth II.

"She’s a fantastic woman,” Mr. Trump said of the 92-year-old monarch. “So much energy and smart and sharp. She was amazing.”

Mr. Morgan eventually brought up Mr. Putin, asking if Mr. Trump considered him a ruthless dictator.

“I assume he probably is,” Mr. Trump replied. “I think we could probably get along very well.”

Mr. Trump’s conciliatory tone contrasted with a harsher stance by members of his administration. In an interview broadcast Sunday morning in the United States, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, appeared to contradict Mr. Trump’s openness to bringing up the subject of extradition.

“I think it’s pretty silly for the president to demand something that he can’t get legally,” Mr. Bolton said on ABC’s “This Week.” “For the president to demand something that isn’t going to happen puts the president in a weak position.”

Mr. Bolton pointed to the legal obstacles in extraditing Russian citizens: The lack of an extradition treaty with Russia.

“You know, the Russians take the position — you can like it or not like it — that their Constitution forbids them to extradite Russian citizens,” he said.

Mr. Bolton, who is traveling with Mr. Trump in Europe, said that one possible alternative would be using Interpol, the international law enforcement agency, for “red notices,” or requests for an arrest pending an extradition. He also said he expected the Justice Department to take steps to arrest the Russians.

Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the American ambassador to Russia, said on Sunday that the F.B.I. office in the United States Embassy “no doubt will work on” extraditing the Russians, but that there was no guarantee of compliance.

“Requests can be made — that doesn’t necessarily mean the Russians will follow through with it,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Noah Weiland contributed reporting from Washington.