President Trump on Tuesday set a 10-day deadline for Russia to reach a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, or else it risks secondary sanctions, which would mean the Kremlin would have to make a deal with Ukraine by Friday, Aug. 8.
The president, who said in Scotland on Monday that he was shortening his original 50-day deadline for Russia to make peace with Ukraine, spoke to reporters about the revised deadline Tuesday aboard Air Force One as he returned to the U.S. Mr. Trump has been in Scotland for the last five days to negotiate trade deals with European leaders and visit his two golf resorts there.
“Ten days from today. Okay?” he said on the plane.
“And then you know, we’re going to put on tariffs and stuff, and I don’t know if it’s going to affect Russia, because he wants to obviously probably keep the war going,” the president added, seemingly speaking about Russian President Vladimir Putin. “But we’re going to put on tariffs and the various things that you put on. It may or may not affect them, but it could.”
The U.S. and Ukraine have been pushing for an immediate ceasefire in order to negotiate a lasting peace deal. Earlier in July, Mr. Trump said if Russia doesn’t agree to a ceasefire within a 50-day window, the U.S. would impose secondary tariffs of up to 100% on goods sold by countries that do business with Russia.
Mr. Trump has increasingly expressed frustration with Putin, questioning whether the Russian leader really wants to end the war with Ukraine. Mr. Trump has described thinking he’d had a good phone call with the Russian leader, only to find that the next day, more Ukrainians were being killed by Russia.
“I always hang up, [and] say, ‘Well, that was a nice phone call,'” Mr. Trump said earlier in July. “And then missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and I say, ‘That’s strange.’ And after that happens three or four times, you say, the talk doesn’t mean anything.”
It’s a change from earlier this year, when Mr. Trump said he thought Putin “wants peace.”
On Monday, Mr. Trump said he was “very disappointed” in Putin over Moscow’s continued bombing of Ukraine, narrowing Russia’s timeframe for a deal from 50 days to 10 or 12.
“There’s no reason in waiting,” Mr. Trump said Monday. “We just don’t see any progress being made.”
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