American officials scrambling this weekend to identify and lock down a venue for Friday’s summit between President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart quickly discovered a major snag: summertime is peak tourist season in Alaska, and options both available and equipped to host the two world leaders were severely limited.
When word reached certain prominent Alaskans that Trump and Putin were coming, a few began reaching out to the president’s allies with a proposition: could their home be an option? It’s unclear if those offers ever reached White House officials, who were calling sites in Juneau, the state capital, along with Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Organizers of the summit soon came to believe the only city in the massive state with viable options for the summit would be Anchorage. And only Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, on the northern edge of the city, would meet the security requirements for the historic meeting, though the White House had hoped to avoid the optics of hosting the Russian leader and his entourage on a US military installation. American officials scrambling this weekend to identify and lock down a venue for Friday’s summit between President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart quickly discovered a major snag: summertime is peak tourist season in Alaska, and options both available and equipped to host the two world leaders were severely limited.
When word reached certain prominent Alaskans that Trump and Putin were coming, a few began reaching out to the president’s allies with a proposition: could their home be an option? It’s unclear if those offers ever reached White House officials, who were calling sites in Juneau, the state capital, along with Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Organizers of the summit soon came to believe the only city in the massive state with viable options for the summit would be Anchorage. And only Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, on the northern edge of the city, would meet the security requirements for the historic meeting, though the White House had hoped to avoid the optics of hosting the Russian leader and his entourage on a US military installation.
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