Donald Trump has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the G20 summit later this year at his Florida resort.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed the invitation was extended while speaking to reporters along the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday in New York City.
The move will further strain the U.S. administration’s relationship with European allies who have bristled at Trump’s attempts to bring Putin back into the diplomatic fold despite his continuing war with Ukraine.
Rubio gave the update following a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“We’ve invited President Putin to the G20. We think it’s an opportunity for him to engage not just with the president, but with other world leaders,” Rubio said. “We hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept.”
The gathering of world leaders will take place December 14 and 15 at Trump National Doral Miami in Florida, as the president increasingly uses his private businesses to conduct presidential business.
Putin has not attended the summit in person since 2019 and has faced increased isolation on the world stage after launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
If he chooses to attend, it would be his second visit to the U.S. during Trump’s second term.
The pair also met in Alaska in August 2025, where Trump rolled out the red carpet for the Russian president but achieved zero success in bringing about an end to Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Trump’s high praise of dictators has infuriated U.S. lawmakers, including some members of his own party, and foreign allies alike.
European leaders have opposed the U.S. reintroducing Russia to world-leader summits. They were unhappy that Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov attended when financial leaders gathered in Asheville, NC, at the end of August.
Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York alongside the U.N. General Assembly this week.
Zelensky said he hoped Trump would help end the war and that it would happen before the winter. He also said he was ready for trilateral meetings with the Russian president, but has yet to comment about America’s G20 invitation to Putin.
Trump indicated that Putin was willing to meet and claimed he wanted the war to end, a claim the president has made numerous times as he tries to close a peace deal as the war drags on.
