The Malta Summit was a meeting between United States President George H. W. Bush and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 2–3, 1989, just a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

News reports of the time referred to the Malta Summit as one of the most important since World War II, when British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed on a post-war plan for Europe at the Yalta Conference.

Brent Scowcroft and other members of the US administration were initially concerned that the proposed Malta Summit would be "premature" and that it would generate high expectations but result in little more than Soviet grandstanding.

At a minimum, it marked the lessening of tensions that were the hallmark of that era and signaled a major turning point in East-West relations.

Stormy weather and choppy seas resulted in some meetings being cancelled or rescheduled, and gave rise to the moniker the "Seasick Summit" among international media.

The meetings ultimately took place aboard Maksim Gorkiy, a Soviet cruise ship chartered to West German tour company Phoenix Reisen, which anchored in the harbor at Marsaxlokk.

It served as a British naval base during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and suffered massive destruction during World War II.