Donald Trump has warned that he will impose higher tariffs and other sanctions on Russia if Vladimir Putin fails to end the war in Ukraine.
Writing on the social networking site Truth Social, he said that by pushing for war to resolve this war, he was doing Russia and its president a “great favor”.
Trump had previously said he would negotiate a solution to an all-out attack on Russia launched in February 2022, in one day.
Russia has not yet responded to the allegations, but senior officials have said in recent days that there is little chance that Moscow will confront the new US administration.
Putin has repeatedly said that he is willing to negotiate an end to the war, which began in 2014, but that Ukraine will have to accept the fact of the benefits of Russian territory, which is currently about 20% of its land. He also refuses to allow Ukraine to join NATO, the Western military alliance.
Kyiv does not want to give up its territory, although President Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted that it may have to temporarily give up some of the land it is currently occupying.
On Tuesday, Trump told a news conference that he would talk to Putin “soon” and that it “sounds like” he will impose more sanctions if the Russian leader doesn’t come to the table.
But in his Public Truth post the next day, he continued: “I will do Russia, whose economy is failing, and President Putin, a huge FAVOR,” he wrote.
“Get right now, and STOP this senseless War! It’s going to be BAD. If we don’t make a ‘deal’, and soon, I have no choice but to impose higher levels of Tariffs, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything Russia sells to the United States, and various other participating countries.”
Continuing, he wrote: “Let’s get this war, which wouldn’t have started if I was President, over! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way – and the easy way is always the best. It’s time to ‘DO. A DEAL’.”
Trump’s former special representative to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, said Trump’s threat of harsher sanctions on Russia “sends a signal to Vladimir Putin that it will get worse, not better”. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he added: “We have to encourage Putin to say, ‘Okay, it’s time to stop shooting.’
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy earlier told Reuters that the Kremlin would need to know what Trump wants from a ceasefire before the country can move forward.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the World Economic Forum on Tuesday that at least 200,000 peacekeepers would be needed under any deal.
And he told Bloomberg that any peacekeeping force in his country would have to include US troops to effectively deter Russia.
“It won’t happen without the United States… Even if some European friends think it can, no, it won’t,” he said, adding that no one else could risk the move except the US.
While Ukraine’s leaders may appreciate the tough-talking Trump – they have always said that Putin only understands power – the initial reaction in Kyiv to the US president’s comments suggests that it is actions, not words, that people expect.
Trump did not specify where, or when, additional economic sanctions might be targeted. Russian imports to the US are down from 2022 and there are all kinds of heavy restrictions already in place.
Currently, Russia’s main exports to the US are phosphate-based fertilizers and platinum.
Speaking to the BBC, Volker said the Russian economy could cause “huge” damage if Trump chooses to maintain or strengthen the tough US sanctions so far, which he said were only imposed as Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, left office. “Russia didn’t really have that much pressure,” he said.
On social media, there was an angry response to Trump’s comments to the Ukrainians. Many have suggested that more sanctions would be a weak response to Russian aggression. But the big question for many is whether Putin is actually open to discussing Ukraine in any peace talks.
Meanwhile, in Moscow, some people see signs that the Kremlin may be teaching Russians to accept less than the “victory” it once imagined, including tanks rolling into the western Ukrainian port city of Odesa.
TV host Margarita Simonyan, a staunch Putin sympathizer, has begun to talk about “realistic” conditions for ending the war, which she suggests could include a halt to front-line fighting.
That would mean four Ukrainian regions that Putin illegally declared Russian territory more than two years ago, including Zaporizhzhia, are still partially controlled by Kyiv.
Russian hardliners, bloggers called “Z”, are angry at such a “defeat”.
In an interview with the BBC on Thursday, former Trump envoy Volker said he “doubts there will be a deal”, adding that the first priority for the US would be to stop fighting and stop Putin’s aggression.
In a post on Wednesday on social media, Trump reiterated his threat of tariffs and tough sanctions with words of “love” for the Russian people and highlighted his respect for the Soviet defeat in World War II – an almost sacred topic for Putin.
But Trump overestimated the numbers and appeared to think the USSR was only Russia. In fact, millions of Ukrainians and other Soviet citizens also lost their lives.
That said, the man who previously said he could “understand” Russia’s concerns about Ukraine joining NATO — which Kyiv is suggesting Putin is upset about — appears to be changing his tune.
Trump’s position is important. But after 11 years of war with Russia and a history of bad peace agreements, Ukrainians are not inclined to be too optimistic.
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