The US has shown it wants to make money with Russian president Vladimir Putin, but his flagship business fair in St Petersburg is another PR failure, while investing in Russia has been condemned as a triumph of greed over sound management.
President Donald Trump is sending Rodney Mims Cook, the head of the US federal Commission of Fine Arts, along with a small group of unnamed CEOs, to attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), a three-day event starting on Wednesday (3 June), according to Robert Agee, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.
The Western guest list also includes a handful of minor, far-right EU politicians: Luxembourgish and Romanian MEPs Fernand Kartheiser and Diana Iovanovici-Sosoacă, as well as three members of Germany’s hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party – Markus Frohnmaier, Steffen Kotré, and Jörg Urban.
Vittorio Torrembini, the president of the Association of Italian Entrepreneurs in Russia, told RIA Novosti he and some 15 Italian businessmen were going.
Tadzio Schilling, the Swiss director of the Association of European Businesses in Russia, said other unnamed European business executives were also to attend.
