Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the United Nations on September 23, 2026, after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that the United States has invited Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in December. “In order to solve problems, you have to meet with the people that you disagree with,” he said. “So we've invited President Putin to the G20. We think it's an opportunity for him to engage not just with the president, but with other world leaders. We hope that's an invitation he'll accept.” Headlines saying Trump issued the invitation are wrong; Rubio did.
The Kremlin answered the same day. Dmitry Peskov told Interfax, “We've heard about the invitation. We're grateful to the U.S. for the invitation, and we welcome it. We'll make a decision, and then we'll work out the details through diplomatic channels.” Reuters rendered it as “We are grateful and appreciative for this invitation.” Putin has not attended a G20 summit in person since 2019.
The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin in 2023 over the deportation of Ukrainian children. It obliges member states to arrest him, it has no enforcement mechanism, and the United States is not a member, so the warrant is not the obstacle here. American sanctions are, and this administration has waived them for him before: once so he could fly to Alaska in August 2025, and again for Russia's sanctioned finance minister to attend a G20 ministerial in Asheville earlier this year. No waiver for December has been reported. The Guardian reported that the House foreign affairs committee posted on X, “Trump signed the Russia sanctions bill 5 days ago. Today Rubio makes clear the administration has no intention of isolating Russia for its war of aggression in Ukraine.”
The venue is the part that belongs in this record. The summit is set for December 14 and 15 at Trump National Doral Miami, a golf resort the president still owns and profits from. He announced that himself in the Oval Office on September 5, 2025, saying “everybody wants it there” and that “each country will have its own building.” On the obvious question he said: “We will not make any money on it. We're doing a deal where it's not going to be money, there's no money in it. I just want it to go well.” The White House said the property would host “at-cost, and will receive no profit from either the State Department or a foreign government.”
There is no way for the public to check that. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed records requests with the State Department and the Secret Service for how the site was chosen, got nothing, and sued. Its central finding is a contrast rather than an accusation: the State Department published a list of requirements in the Federal Register for cities bidding to host the smaller G20 meetings through 2026, and cities including Washington, Asheville and Atlanta were selected that way. The Leaders' Summit went through no such process. No document has been produced showing that anywhere other than the president's own club was considered, and no dollar figure for what the property takes in has been disclosed by anyone.
Trump tried this once before. In 2019 he announced the 2020 G7 would be at the same resort, justified it by saying the Secret Service preferred the site, and reversed after bipartisan objections; CREW later obtained internal Secret Service documents that contradicted the claim. The summit was never held in person because of the pandemic.
For the broader pattern of federal money and attention flowing to properties the president owns, see White House Ballroom Funded by $400 Million From Corporate Donors; a Judge Orders Construction to Stop, Ruling 'The President Is Not the Owner' and Public Citizen: Trump's Ballroom Donors Won More Than $50 Billion in Federal Contracts in Six Months, With Lockheed Alone Getting $43.8 Billion.
Update (September 28, 2026): senators of both parties have asked Trump to take the invitation back. A letter dated September 24, led by Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, reads: “Given President Putin's continued actions against the Ukrainian people and U.S. national security interests, we urge you to reconsider granting President Putin the stature and legitimacy to appear in the United States as a world leader at the G20 Leaders' Summit.” It asks, “However, if President Putin and his government are not isolated on the international stage, what incentive does Russia have to agree to a ceasefire?” and urges Trump to “reverse course and rescind the invitation.” Republicans John Cornyn, Jerry Moran, John Curtis, Thom Tillis and Alan Armstrong signed; the committee's release lists 14 senators including Mitch McConnell, though the posted letter carries 13 signature blocks and not his. The letter also asks that sanctioned Russian officials be kept out of the G20 ministerial meetings “until Russia agrees to a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” The White House and State Department did not immediately respond, the Washington Sun reported.