April 12 summit between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, was judged to have ended in failure before it even began. Before the two had even met, the New York Times ran a piece criticizing the Trump Administration for having failed to pull off a quick rapprochement with Russia. The article cited various specialists, all marveling at how quickly Trump was transformed into a Russia hawk. Angela Stent, the author of an indispensable history of U.S.-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War, put it most succinctly.
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Damir Marusic, Karina Orlova: When Rex met Sergey
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L) and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson enter a hall during a meeting in Moscow on April 12.
