Obama not expected to attend trade meeting in Russia

President Obama isn't expected to attend a fall trade summit in Russia. 

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that, at this point, the president doesn't have any foreign travel scheduled for September, when the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting is scheduled to take place in Vladivostok.

"The fact of the matter is we have a comprehensive relationship with Russia that's built on working together in areas where we agree and that has borne significant successes," Carney told reporters during a flight up to New York on Monday. 

He said the two nations have been careful not to let disagreements undermine their overall relationship.

"That was true under President [Dmitry] Medvedev when Vladimir Putin was prime minister, and it will continue to be true now that Mr. Putin has returned to the presidency and Mr. Medvedev is now prime minister," he said. 

Putin told Obama last week that he would be unable to attend the Group of 8 summit at Camp David, which starts this weekend, because he is still organizing his government after his recent election and inauguration. Medvedev will take his place.

Obama and Putin are still scheduled to meet at the Group of 20 in Mexico next month, the White House has said.

"I'm not aware of any foreign travel that we’d be taking, with the exception of the Mexico trip, before November," Carney said.

Putin and Obama should have plenty to talk about when they meeting, including Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization in July and the need for Congress to grant the former communist nation permanent normal trade relations before the end of July. 

The House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing in June. 

Obama stopped through the APEC meeting in Hawaii in November as part of an extended trip to the Pacific Rim, including Indonesia, where he lived for awhile as a boy. 

U.S. trade officials attended APEC in Hawaii as part of further discussions with eight other members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.