The U.S. could impose crippling secondary sanctions on Russia if the three-year-old war it has been waging against Ukraine is not brought to an end by September 2, President Donald Trump has said.
Speaking in the Oval Office Monday alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump said he’s “very unhappy” with Russia and its president Vladimir Putin, and pledged to impose what he described as “very severe tariffs” on Moscow “if we don’t have a deal in 50 days.”
“I’m disappointed in President Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn’t seem to get there. So based on that, we’re going to be doing secondary tariffs. If we don’t have a deal in 50 days, it’s very simple, and they’ll be at 100 percent, and that’s the way it is. That can be more simple. It’s just the way it is. I hope we don’t have to do it,” he said.
While Trump has often used tariffs — import taxes paid by American importers on foreign goods — as a general-purpose cudgel against adversaries and allies alike, Russia has almost no current trade relationship with the United States on account of punishing sanctions imposed by the previous Biden administration to punish Moscow in the years since the war began.
The tariffs the president is threatening to impose this time would actually be secondary sanctions meant to punish countries purchasing Russian oil — by taxing imports from those nations at levels as high as 100 percent. They could effectively double the cost of imports from places such as China, India and Germany as all three are major U.S. trading partners that still purchase Russian petroleum products.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later clarified to reporters that Trump was indeed speaking of secondary sanctions on countries that purchase Russian petroleum rather than tariffs on Russian goods.
“So it’s economic sanctions ... you can also make an economic penalty: if I catch you doing it, then you’ll have to pay,” he said before adding that Trump indeed has both sanctions and tariffs “in his toolbox” with respect to Russia.
Trump ripped into the Russian leader, accusing him of being “all talk” after months of U.S. efforts to broker a deal to end the war he started by ordering an invasion of Ukraine, and said he’d prefer not to use the powerful secondary sanctions he’s threatened but stressed that the war “has got to stop.”
“I hope we don’t get to the point where we do, but I’ve been hearing so much talk. It’s all talk. It’s all talk. And then missiles go into Kyiv and kill 60 people,” he said.
The president also confirmed that the United States will be providing more arms to Ukraine through NATO allies that will be purchasing the weapons and transferring them to Kyiv, with coordinating work being done by Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO.
Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister who took over as the top NATO official last year, called the development “really big” and praised the president — who he called “Dear Donald” — for having decided to provide Ukraine what it needs to defend itself.
He also called Trump’s decision to allow European NATO allies to fund the weapons “totally logical” and suggested it built on the NATO allies’ decision to require each of the bloc’s 32 nations to fund defense at five percent of their respective gross domestic products.
For his part, the president said the “billions of dollars worth of military equipment” purchased by NATO allies would be “quickly distributed to the battlefield,” and praised Ukraine’s forces once more for the skill with which they’ve used their American-made weapons.
“Say what you want about Ukraine ... when the war started, they had no chance, and they still would have no chance if the equipment, they had the best equipment, because we do make the best planes and missiles, and we make the best military equipment in the world by far,” he said. “They had courage, because somebody has to use that equipment. And they fought with tremendous courage, and they continue to fight with tremendous courage.”
Trump also criticized Russia’s attacks on civilian targets, using”several hundred drones a day” and “missiles ... bombing cities” as having “no military reason” for it.
“This is not because of military goals. It is just creating panic out of their sleeps, hitting towns. It’s really terrible, and it is meaning a lot of people lose their lives, but also the infrastructure. Whole cities being they’re wiping out the electric it’s going to take years to rebuild it.”
The U.S. president added that he hopes the NATO countries’ increased defense spending and funding of more weapons for Kyiv would “have an impact on Putin.”
“And we hope it’s going to have an impact on Ukraine ... we want to make sure that Ukraine does what they have to do. I feel confident that they will do what has to be done. Plus we have certain parameters that both sides know, and we already know what should be done. So I think that’s going to be, it’s going to be very strong. We want everlasting peace,” he said.
Asked about a Senate proposal to impose 500 percent secondary sanctions on Russia, Trump said Republicans were “moving very strongly” on the package and amending it to give him more authority to lift or delay them if needed, but he suggested they might not be necessary.
“I’m not sure we need it, but it’s certainly good that they’re doing it. They’ve actually crafted a pretty good piece of legislation. It’s probably going to pass very easily, and that includes Democrats, and there are some little tweaks, but I don’t want to say I don’t need it, because I don’t want them to waste their time. It could be very useful. We’ll have to see,” he said.
As he spoke with reporters, Trump continued to lay into Putin, calling the Russian leader a “tough guy” who’d “fooled” multiple American leaders over his time in office.
He described speaking with Putin “a lot” about reaching a peace deal, only to find Russia later launched new attacks on Ukraine.
“I always hang up say, ‘Well, that was a nice phone call.’ And then missiles launched into Kyiv or some other city ... and after that happens three or four times, you say, the talk doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “At a certain point, you know, ultimately, talk doesn’t talk. It’s got to be action. It’s got to be results.”
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