{"id":343315,"date":"2025-08-14T07:48:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T07:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343315\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T07:48:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T07:48:16","slug":"anchorage-abuzz-ahead-of-trump-putin-summit-but-please-dont-sell-us-back-alaska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343315\/","title":{"rendered":"Anchorage abuzz ahead of Trump-Putin summit \u2013 but \u2018please don\u2019t sell us back\u2019 | Alaska"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is set to be one of the last good summer weekends in Anchorage, Alaska \u2013 the peak of the salmon run and the middle of berry season \u2013 and residents hope that Friday\u2019s summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin<\/a> isn\u2019t going to ruin it for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to taking my boat out on the water at Prince William Sound \u2013 that\u2019s my plan,\u201d said Andy Moderow, who works at a conservation nonprofit in Anchorage.<\/p>\n

Jeff Landfield, owner of the Alaska Landmine<\/a> news site, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve had a pretty good summer. Getting projects done, going out hunting, fishing, camping, four-wheeling. But it\u2019s coming to the close of the season, so I\u2019ve seen several people say, \u2018They better not fuck up my plans.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Salmon fishing on Ship Creek in downtown Anchorage. Photograph: Edwin Remsberg\/Alamy<\/p>\n

The largest city in Alaska<\/a>, Anchorage sits farther north than Oslo and St Petersburg. With a population of just under 300,000 people, its low-slung downtown sits on mud flats above the Cook Inlet, at the base of the Chugach mountains. Its neighborhoods sprawl on wide streets between strip malls and stands of birch; its downtown shops sell Alaska Native handicrafts and bear and moose-themed souvenirs.<\/p>\n

Residents refer<\/a> to the rest of the US as \u201cthe lower 48\u201d, and see themselves as having \u201can independent streak\u201d, said Colleen Heaney-Mead, who runs a daycare in Anchorage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be part of whatever is happening there,\u201d she said, discussing the Trump administration\u2019s actions in the contiguous US. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to do everything they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s summit won\u2019t mark the first time the city has been the setting for high-profile diplomacy. China\u2019s president Xi Jinping stopped off at the city in 2017, dining<\/a> on king salmon and crab bisque on his way back from a meeting with Trump in Florida.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Anchorage was the venue for a tense meeting between Chinese diplomats and officials from the Biden government who publicly rebuked each other<\/a> over human rights abuses and systemic racism.<\/p>\n

A stuffed bear greets visitors at a shop along 4th Avenue in downtown Anchorage. Photograph: Richard Ellis\/Alamy<\/p>\n

But this time around, things feels different.<\/p>\n

In Alaska, Russia is not an abstract enemy but a close neighbor; its jets buzz<\/a> Alaskan airspace, its government is said to be undercutting<\/a> Alaskan fishermen. Anchorage residents are torn between excitement over a high-profile visit and trepidation over what that visit might mean.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou feel like Anchorage is back on the map in a way, which I think everyone sort of enjoys,\u201d said Hollis French, a retired state senator who served on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough I had dinner last night with two friends, and we\u2019re all sort of pessimistic and skeptical. You know, I would say we\u2019re expecting Trump to do something horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s announcement that he was going to meet Putin \u201cin Russia\u201d also set off alarm bells in a region which was part of the Russian empire<\/a> until its sale to the US in 1867.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the satirical response that Alaskans have: \u2018Please don\u2019t sell us back,\u2019\u201d said Heaney-Mead.<\/p>\n

Moderow, who grew up near the end of the cold war, said fallout shelters and nuclear drills were some of his earliest memories, even if Alaskan politicians, such as the 2008 vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, at times make a bit much of the short distance between the two countries.<\/p>\n

Xi Jinping with then governor Bill Walker in 2017. Photograph: Imago\/Alamy<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia is a neighbor,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019ve grown up in the state, you are aware of Russia<\/a>, and its proximity \u2013 even though Sarah Palin kind of oversold it in her debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

French concurred, saying: \u201cWe are aware that they\u2019re a hostile neighbor. We are aware that they probe our defenses and we respond accordingly. I think most people know that the leader of the country is not, you know, the embodiment of the country. But [Putin] certainly got his people cowed. And so I think Alaskans are wary of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Landfield gestured to longstanding cultural ties between Russia and Alaska, including university exchange programs, and the Old Believers, a sect<\/a> of the Russian Orthodox church, brought to Alaska by Russians fleeing repression over the years. \u201cPeople don\u2019t like Putin. It\u2019s not Russia or Russians,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think Russia is our enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Acu\u00f1a Buxton, a longtime political reporter based in Anchorage, said there was \u201ca really broad dissatisfaction\u201d that Putin \u2013 the subject of an international criminal court<\/a> (ICC) arrest warrant \u2013 is visiting the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of Alaskans really understand that Putin and Putin\u2019s administration are really not friends of Alaskans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The White House has signalled<\/a> that the summit will be held at the military base in north-east Anchorage, a letdown for locals, says Meade, as \u201canything that happens on base isn\u2019t like it really happens in Alaska\u201d.<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t stopped Anchorage residents from offering other ideas: 49% of respondents to a poll<\/a> from the Alaska Landmine suggested the two world leaders could meet \u201cat Sarah Palin\u2019s house<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Flattop Mountain, which has three distinct peaks. Photograph: Image Source Limited\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Another Anchorage newsletter, the Alaska Memo, proposed that Trump and Putin could hike Flattop Mountain, the \u201cquintessential Anchorage-area date night\u201d, or stay at Skinny Dick\u2019s Halfway Inn<\/a> on the road to Fairbanks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a meme-rich environment right now,\u201d said Landfield.<\/p>\n

Acu\u00f1a Buxton, who writes the Alaska Memo<\/a>, said such satire offers Alaskans a way of coping with the \u201cdystopian\u201d and improbable scenario of Trump trading Alaska to Russia.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, in the big picture of things, this is about Ukraine<\/a>,\u201d he said of the Trump-Putin meeting. \u201c[But] I think for Alaskans, it\u2019s just sort of like a chance to roll our eyes a little bit and make some jokes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is set to be one of the last good summer weekends in Anchorage, Alaska \u2013 the peak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-343315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115026021836480420","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}