President Donald Trump reminded Russia “very, very tough” sanctions loom if it kills peace talks, saying Ukraine would suffer the same fate if he felt they hadn’t done their part to keep talks going.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz joined President Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday morning for a conversation the German press briefed beforehand he hoped could be used to push the U.S. leader towards greater support for Kyiv. Responding to a question from the floor about the willingness of the U.S. to launch major new sanctions against the Russian Federation, Trump said he would punish any country that stood in the way of the peace process.
Stating he would stand back with further screw-tightening until it became clear talks had either collapsed or were being strung along with no intent to strike a deal, President Trump replied: “…when I see the moment when we’re not going to make a deal, when this thing won’t stop, at that moment… we’ll be very, very tough. And it could be on both countries, to be honest, you know? It takes two to tango. We’re going to be very tough whether it’s Russia or anybody else.”
On the United States’ capacity to mete out punishment, Trump said in the Oval Office: “if [a peace deal] doesn’t happen and if I see someone’s out of line, if Russia’s out of line, you’ll be amazed how tough [I will be]”. Despite the warning Ukraine could cop flak for taking an obstructive stance against talks, the President emphasised he supported Kyiv, adding: “I’m with Ukraine, we just signed a big deal on rare earth with Ukraine. I’m for stopping killing, really.”
Comparing the war to fighting children or professional athletes who the referee needs to let “bad blood” be let before pulling them apart, Trump said of the animosity between President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine: “there’s a great hatred between those two men”.
The Western world has already piled sanctions on Russia since the start of its 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine. While the extent to which these have hindered Russia’s economy is hard to prove, Russia has certainly enjoyed something of a wartime economic bump in that period.
Part of this has been because, despite those sanctions, Russia has been able to continue to export vast quantities of energy in the form of oil and gas sales. President Trump has proposed, as his mooted punishment sanctions if Russia does not agree to peace in good faith, what he has termed secondary sanctions. Rather than levying sanctions on the Russian economy — which has had limited success so far — the United States would instead punish those customers of Russian energy, one of the largest of which is China.
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