Donald Trump has threatened Russia with “severe tariffs” if there is not a deal to end the war in Ukraine in 50 days.
During a meeting with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte on Monday, the US president also said he would be sending “top-of-the-line” weapons to Ukraine via Nato countries.
"We want to make sure Ukraine can do what it wants to do," Trump said.
With regards to tariffs, Trump did not provide specifics on how they would be implemented, but he said “I use trade for lots of things”, noting “it’s great for settling wars.”
European countries will send their Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine, which heavily depends on them to defend against Russia’s deadly air assaults.
These systems will later be replaced by the United States, Trump added.
Although neither Trump nor Rutte provided detailed information about the military equipment involved, Rutte confirmed that the deal includes "missiles and ammunition."
The president did say that “top-of-the-line weapons” worth billions of dollars would be “quickly distributed to the battlefield” to help Ukraine in its war efforts.
"It's a full complement with the batteries," Trump said. "We're going to have some come very soon, within days... a couple of the countries that have Patriots are going to swap over and will replace the Patriots with the ones they have."
Some or all of 17 Patriot batteries ordered by other countries could be sent to Ukraine "very quickly", he said.
Rutte said Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Canada all wanted to be a part of rearming Ukraine.
"If I was Vladimir Putin today... I would reconsider whether I should not take negotiations about Ukraine more seriously," Rutte said, while Trump nodded in agreement.
Meanwhile, Trump has threatened to impose 100% secondary tariffs targeting Russia’s remaining trade partners if a peace deal is not reached in 50 days.
This would mean that any country that trades with Russia would face the tax if they want to sell to the products to the US.
The threat to impose secondary sanctions on Russia, if carried out, would be a major shift in Western sanctions policy.
Lawmakers from both US political parties are pushing for a bill that would authorise such measures, targeting other countries that buy Russian oil.
Throughout the more than three-year-old war, Western countries have cut most of their own financial ties to Moscow, but have held back from taking steps that would restrict Russia from selling its oil elsewhere.
That has allowed Moscow to continue earning hundreds of billions of dollars from shipping oil to buyers such as China and India.
"We're going to be doing secondary tariffs," Trump said. "If we don't have a deal in 50 days, it's very simple, and they'll be at 100%."
