Here is what he said in that interview:
“Well, I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now, you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe. Russia is foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically, certainly they are a foe. But that doesn’t mean they are bad. It doesn’t mean anything. It means that they are competitive.”
what Mr. trump said
“We’ll be competing — as you know, the United States is now — or soon will be, but I think it actually is right now the largest in the oil and gas world.”
the facts
This requires context.Asked about his misleading comment last week that Germany is “captive” to Russia because of its Russian gas imports, Mr. Trump said the United States “will be competing” with Russia as an energy provider.
It is true that the United States was the top producer of oil and natural gas in 2017, according to the Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department’s statistical agency.
But the United States still relies on foreign oil imports, given that it is the world’s top oil consumer, and overall is a net importer of energy. It does, however, export more natural gas than it imports.
what Mr. Putin said
“When President Trump was at Moscow back then, I didn’t even know that he was in Moscow. I treat President Trump with utmost respect, but back then when he was a private individual, a businessman, nobody informed me that he was in Moscow.
the facts
This is disputed.In November 2013, Mr. Trump hosted the Miss Universe pageant in a suburb of Moscow. Mr. Putin’s claim of ignorance of Mr. Trump’s presence is contradicted by Mr. Trump himself, as well as two other people.
In a 2014 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. Putin had sent him a “beautiful present with a beautiful note” while he was hosting the pageant. That same year, in a speech to the National Press Club, Mr. Trump said he “spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer” during his time in Moscow. (Mr. Trump backtracked on those comments during the 2016 election, when he said he had no relationship with Mr. Putin.)
Aras Agalarov, a Moscow billionaire who knows the Trump family, told The Washington Post in June 2016 that Mr. Putin canceled a scheduled appearance at the pageant. But Mr. Putin sent Mr. Trump “a decorative lacquered box, a traditional Russian gift, and a warm note,” according to Mr. Agalarov.
Mr. Agalarov’s publicist, Rob Gladstone, brokered the June 2016 meeting between the Trump campaign and a Kremlin-connected lawyer. Last December, Mr. Gladstone told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Mr. Agalarov called on behalf of Mr. Putin’s spokesman to apologize for not being able to meet with Mr. Trump.