U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States will do business with both Russia and Ukraine once the war in Ukraine ends, as controversy mounts over Russian involvement in a liquefied natural gas project in Alaska.
Asked by reporters about Russian investment moves in Alaska after casting an early ballot at a polling station in Palm Beach County, Florida, on the 24th, Trump said the United States would end up doing business with both Ukraine and Russia once the war is over.
The remarks followed allegations that a Russian company is involved in the Alaska LNG project. The New York Times earlier reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin met last month with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's special envoys, as part of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and discussed ways to cooperate on Polar LNG, an Alaska gas project.
According to the Financial Times, the talks involved an arrangement under which Russian energy company Novatek would provide technology for building the Polar LNG liquefaction facility in exchange for the United States lifting sanctions on Arctic LNG 2, an export facility in Siberia. The dispute over possible sanctions violations widened after Joel Riddle, the former chief executive of Polar LNG who resigned last month, alleged that Novatek had secretly financed the project.
Polar LNG is separate from Project North, the Alaska LNG venture for which the Trump administration has been pressing South Korea, Japan and Taiwan to invest. Project North, led by Glenfarne Group and the Alaska state government, calls for building a 1,300-kilometer pipeline running from northern to southern Alaska to ship gas to Asian markets. Polar LNG instead would build a liquefaction facility on the coast near Prudhoe Bay and move gas using icebreaking LNG carriers.