Miami-Dade's Democratic mayor blasts Trump for Putin invite to G20 in Doral

Douglas Hanks, Miami Herald on Sep 29, 2026

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MIAMI — Miami-Dade’s Democratic mayor says President Donald Trump is wrong to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to the G20 global summit in Doral.

In a statement, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Putin’s invasion of Ukraine makes him the kind of brutal dictator that immigrant families in Miami-Dade fled, adding to the mistake of Trump’s invitation to a global gathering in the Miami area.

“For generations, Miami-Dade has been a place where the survivors of authoritarian rule could finally speak freely,” said Levine Cava, whose second and final term ends in November 2028. “To roll out the red carpet for a man who launched an unprovoked war on a sovereign democracy, who has bombed Ukrainian cities, power plants, and apartment buildings for more than four years, and who faces an international arrest warrant for the deportation of Ukrainian children, is a contradiction our community cannot ignore.”

Trump is hosting the G20 —- a gathering of global leaders, including the premiere of China — at the Trump National golf resort in Doral in December. The invitation to Putin came last week by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American who started his political career in West Miami.

While Putin attended past G20 summits, that ended after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine while President Joe Biden was in office.

The invitation by the Trump administration comes a year after Trump met Putin in Alaska for talks on ending the war in Ukraine.

“We think it’s an opportunity for him to engage not just with the president, but with other world leaders, Rubio told reporters Wednesday after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, according to Politico. “We hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept.”