President Donald Trump’s deadline for Russia to end its war in Ukraine or suffer severe economic punishment expires Friday, but it’s unclear how he plans to proceed amid new efforts toward a summit with Vladimir Putin and delicate trade negotiations with China.
Trump promised earlier this week to apply new sanctions on Russia even as he questioned how effective they would be. The White House said Wednesday he still intended to slap “secondary sanctions” on countries that continue to purchase Russian energy.
But by Thursday — after he initiated preparations to try and meet Putin face-to-face — he was less committal.
“It’s going to be up to him,” Trump said, referring to Putin, when asked whether his deadline still stands and the new measures would take hold.
The complications of applying new sanctions on Moscow while simultaneously preparing for potential talks with Putin only underscored the uncertain moment for the war in Ukraine.
Trump has been wary of appearing to be strung along by Putin, with whom he’s grown increasingly frustrated and has accused of duplicity. But he is also eager for a peace deal, and seems open to hearing out the Russian leader face-to-face. US officials suggested Thursday nothing had been finalized – including the format, date or location for talks.
In the past, Trump has been reluctant to apply new sanctions on Moscow, fearing they could push Putin further away from the negotiating table. His renewed threat to apply both sanctions on Russia itself and purchasers of its energy this week was the closest he’d come to implementing new measures. On Wednesday, for example, he announced an additional 25% tariff on India to go into effect later this month as punishment for importing Russian oil.
The president has also been considering other options, including targeting the aging tankers that make up Russia’s “shadow fleet” used to skirt existing Western sanctions, administration officials said. Officials have also looked for ways to tighten enforcement of sanctions on Russia that are already in place.
Some European officials privately said they feared a summit was just another attempt by Putin to prolong the war while also avoiding new US sanctions. Several European leaders spent Thursday on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussing how to approach the new diplomatic efforts.
Trump has sounded no less frustrated with Putin in recent days and isn’t ruling out the new economic measures. Even so, he has tasked his team with moving ahead on a potential summit, and American officials were working through the logistics and policy preparations for a meeting both the White House and the Kremlin have said could occur as early as next week.
US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G20 summit in Osaka on June 28, 2019. – Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images/FILE
The Kremlin seized on the prospective summit on Thursday, saying they were moving ahead with plans for talks. Putin even raised a potential location, the United Arab Emirates, though no venue has been settled upon.
The idea for a meeting arose during talks Wednesday between Putin and Trump’s foreign envoy Steve Witkoff; the Kremlin said it was Trump’s idea while the White House said it was the Russians’.
Trump relayed his intentions for a summit to European leaders in a phone call afterward. He said in that conversation he wanted to meet Putin, but also meet with both Putin and Zelensky in a trilateral formal, according to sources familiar with the call.
A day later, Trump said he would not condition a summit with Putin on the Russian president also meeting with Ukraine’s leader.
“No, he doesn’t,” Trump said when asked whether Putin must meet Zelensky for his own summit to proceed. “They would like to meet with me, and I’ll do whatever I can to stop the killing.”
He didn’t rule out moving ahead with the new sanctions, which have been championed by Republican lawmakers and welcomed by European leaders.
But he suggested he first wanted to hear Putin out.
“We’re going to see what he has to say,” Trump said. “It’s going to be up to him. Very disappointed.”
Trump’s first use of so-called secondary sanctions — his threatened additional 25% tariff on India — is set to take effect on August 27.
India is the second-largest importer of Russian energy products. Moscow’s biggest customer is China, with whom Trump officials are engaging in a delicate negotiation over trade.
US officials have described significant progress on those talks. But earlier this week, Trump did not rule out applying the new secondary sanctions on Beijing, despite the potential for scuttling the trade discussions.
“One of them could be China,” he said. “It may happen. I don’t know. I can’t tell you yet.”
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