WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin and talked for an hour Saturday, seeking to cultivate "a great relationship."
The call occurred after Trump talked with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and the two agreed to hold a summit in Washington on Feb. 10. Later Trump also called German Chancellor Angela Merkel and agreed on the importance of NATO, according to a joint statement from Merkel's office.
Trump's talk with Putin began about 11 a.m. Central time. The U.S. president is facing pressure to maintain sanctions against Moscow that were imposed under former President Barack Obama's administration.
U.S.-Russian relations have been strained over Russia's conflict in Ukraine, it's role in the war in Syria and U.S. intelligence agencies' conclusions that Putin ordered systematic hacking of Democratic emails to tip November's presidential election in Trump's favor.
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Trump spoke with Putin from the Oval Office, with Vice President Mike Pence, national security adviser Michael Flynn, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Steve Bannon and press secretary Sean Spicer in the room.
The White House said the Putin call was "a significant start to improving the relationship between the United States and Russia that is in need of repair."
A White House official later said the sanctions did not come up in Saturday's call between Trump and Putin. The official said Putin brought up several times that Islamic terrorism is a "common foe" for the U.S. and Russia. The official was not authorized to disclose details of the call and insisted on anonymity.
However, the Kremlin said the two leaders addressed the importance of "restoring mutually beneficial trade and economic ties between business circles of the two countries."
Two Republican U.S. senators -- Arizona's John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Ohio's Rob Portman, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee -- warned the White House against easing sanctions against Russia.
"I hope President Trump will put an end to this speculation and reject such a reckless course," McCain said in a statement. "If he does not, I will work with my colleagues to codify sanctions against Russia into law."
Portman said lifting the sanctions "for any reason other than a change in the behavior that led to those sanctions in the first place would send a dangerous message to a world already questioning the value of American leadership and the credibility of our commitments after eight years of Obama administration policies."
Trump has said it is too early to decide the future of the sanctions and that he is still developing his relationship with Putin.
"I don't know the gentleman," he said Friday. "I hope we have a fantastic relationship. That's possible. And it's also possible we won't. We will see what happens. I will be representing the American people very, very strongly, very forcefully."
Russia, though, has welcomed Trump as a pragmatist who will not try to enforce American values on the rest of the world.
"I hope that his attitude to foreign policy will be like some sort of business deal," Andrei Norkin, co-host of a popular Russian political talk show, said last week. "People who will work with him will be telling him 'Mr. President, we are taking a risk here,' and he will agree."
Calls to Abe, Merkel
Trump began the day with the call to Abe, in which the two discussed security, trade issues between the U.S. and Japan, and the mutual threat posed by North Korea.
"President Trump affirmed the iron-clad U.S. commitment to ensuring the security of Japan," a White House statement said.
The U.S.-Japan alliance has come under stress since Trump backed out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership shortly after taking office. Abe, a key advocate of the deal, has signaled that he's open to a bilateral agreement and said last week that he wants a summit to show that the two nations' alliance is "unshakable."
"When we meet on February 10, I want to have a frank exchange of opinions on the economy and security," Abe said. "I want to make it a meaningful exchange of opinions."
Trump told Republican lawmakers in Philadelphia last week that rather than multinational trade pacts, he'd seek bilateral agreements with quick opt-out triggers.
"Believe me, we're going to have a lot of trade deals," Trump said. "If that particular country doesn't treat us fairly, we send them a 30-day termination, notice of termination."
Trump's defense secretary, James Mattis, plans to visit Japan and South Korea this week on his first international trip.
Trump's outreach to Merkel on Saturday was the second time the two leaders have spoken by phone. Merkel had called him shortly after his election to offer her congratulations.
In their joint statement, Trump and Merkel agreed on the "fundamental importance that the NATO alliance has for trans-Atlantic relations" and the need for all members to pay their fair share.
There was no mention of migrants and refugees. Trump had criticized Merkel during his election campaign, saying she was "ruining" Germany by allowing hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers into the country. After Trump's election, Merkel said the basis for cooperation between the U.S. and Germany should be "democracy, freedom and human rights worldwide, and to strive for an open and liberal world order."
The statement said Trump accepted Merkel's invitation to attend the G-20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, in July. Trump also said he looked forward to welcoming Merkel in Washington "soon," according to the statement.
Lobbying rules
Trump also acted Saturday to fulfill a key portion of his pledge to "drain the swamp" in Washington, banning administration officials from ever lobbying the U.S. on behalf of a foreign government and imposing a separate five-year ban on other lobbying.
Trump has said people who want to help him "make America great again" should focus on their jobs, not thinking ahead about peddling their influence as paid lobbyists.
"Most of the people standing behind me will not be able to go to work," Trump joked, referring to the White House officials who lined up behind him as he sat at his Oval Office desk. The officials included Pence, Priebus, Bannon and counselor Kellyanne Conway. "So you have one last chance to get out."
Trump said he talked about the ban during the campaign, and "we're now putting it into effect."
In a pair of separate actions, Trump took steps to begin restructuring the White House National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council. He also gave Mattis and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president's top military advisers, 30 days to come up with a plan to defeat the Islamic State extremist group.
Under an executive order that Trump signed in the presence of the news media, every political appointee joining the executive branch on or after Jan. 20 -- the day Trump took office -- must agree to the lobbying bans. That includes avoiding lobbying the agency they worked for -- for five years after leaving the agency.
Another provision sets a two-year period during which appointees must avoid working on issues involving former employers or clients.
Trump is allowed to waive any of the restrictions.
Questions had been raised about how the bans would be enforced. The order says they are "solely enforceable" by the U.S. government "by any legally available means," including debarment proceedings within any affected executive branch agency, or civil court proceedings.
Former appointees who are found to have violated the ban may also be barred from lobbying their former agency for up to five years, on top of the five-year period covered by the pledge, the executive order states.
Trump said the order supersedes one that Obama signed on Jan. 21, 2009, that banned anyone from lobbying the government for a period of two years after leaving. Trump said Obama's order, which runs more than 2,500 words, was "full of loopholes."
Information for this article was contributed by Philip Rucker, David Filipov and Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post; by Julie Pace, Vivian Salama, Frank Jordans, Darlene Superville, Julie Bykowicz and Howard Amos of The Associated Press; and by Justin Sink, Isabel Reynolds, Emi Nobuhiro and Nick Wadhams of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 01/29/2017