US President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on Russia if it does not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine within 50 days. The announcement of economic sanctions by the president is reportedly seen as pressure tactics to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days. Tariffs at about 100%, you’d call them secondary tariffs. You know what that means,” Trump said during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on Monday.
Meanwhile, he also warmed of “secondary tariffs” or secondary sanctions on countries that do trade with Russia–buy oil.
“I use trade for a lot of things. But it’s great for settling wars,” Trump added.
The secretary general of NATO Matt Whitaker, speaking to CNN at the White House said, “They’re secondary sanctions. It’s sanctions on countries that are buying the oil from Russia. So it’s really not about sanctioning Russia. It’s about tariffs on countries like India and China that are buying their oil. It really is going to dramatically impact the Russian economy,” he added.
Following Trump’s election victory last year, European officials immediately started discussing ways to continue US weapons shipments to Ukraine under a leader who had vowed to withdraw American support. Trump’s new Ukraine arms deal would see European countries buy American weapons and then send them to Ukraine.
“I felt we had a deal about four times,” Trump said, referring to a prospective peace deal with Russia. “But it just kept going on and on,” Trump said making his displeasure known with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Ukraine arms deal is a game-changer, according to Rutte. He identified many countries as potential suppliers of weapons, including Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Germany.
The president explained that the Ukraine arms deal included sending a “full complement” of weaponry. A person familiar with the discussions said ahead of the announcement that the US could sell short-range missiles, Howitzer rounds, and medium-range air-to-air missiles to NATO members, which would then be transferred to Ukraine. The top item on Kyiv’s wish list includes the Patriot missile batteries, which were essential to Ukraine’s defences, Trump said on Sunday.
According to Whitaker, defensive systems, such as Patriot batteries that can intercept Russian ballistic missiles, was the primary focus of supplying weapons to Ukraine. He did not, however, rule out supplying offensive weapons.
“All weapons are both offensive and defensive. Obviously an air defense system is important and critical for the situation, but at the same time we’re not taking anything off the table,” he said.
Officials stated that Trump’s decision about weapons was the result of multiple considerations. The president wants to shield himself from political criticism that he is abandoning a campaign promise to reduce the US involvement in the protracted conflict by selling weapons to European countries instead of sending them to Ukraine.