For years, Donald Trump criticized presidents for empty threats.
He often pointed to then-President Barack Obama failing to enforce his “red line” on Syria using chemical weapons. During his first term in 2017, Trump called it a “blank threat” that cost us “in many other parts of the world.”
When Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, he intoned: “Today’s action sends a critical message: The United States no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises, I keep them.”
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Trump decried the Biden administration for letting Vladimir Putin off “with no repercussions whatsoever.”
But Monday, as Trump prepares to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a host of European leaders, his own threats to sanction Russia are looking pretty empty.
The president last month issued a tight new deadline for Russia to agree to a peace deal or face supposedly crippling economic punishment. That deadline passed 10 days ago with no new sanctions on Moscow, although he did announce higher tariffs on India for buying Russian oil, set to go into effect later this month.
And on the day of his sanctions deadline, Trump instead announced he’d be meeting with Putin, which he did on Friday in Alaska.
But to the extent we know anything that came of that summit, it seems to be that Trump has not only backed off on his sanctions threat – at least for now – but he’s also backed off on his push for a ceasefire in Ukraine. He instead wants a full peace deal now – which could take much longer to hash out and could buy Putin time, with little to no public evidence that the Russian president is serious about peace.
There is something to be said for being nimble in foreign policy and adjusting to new inputs. But there’s also something to be said for making threats that you intend to back up.
And Trump’s commentary here has been clear.
For months now, he’s said sanctions were right around the corner.
“If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” Trump said on social media on January 22.
Nearly seven months later, “soon” apparently still hasn’t arrived.
When asked in May about a package of Russia sanctions that has widespread support in the Senate, Trump told Fox News it was “turkey time.”
“That would be crushing for Russia, because they’re having a hard time now with the economy,” Trump said.
“Turkey time” was three months ago. Russia still hasn’t been crushed.
By July, Trump got more explicit with his timeframe. He initially said Russia had 50 days to cut a deal or face sanctions and “secondary tariffs.” Two weeks later, he tightened that to 10-12 days and then 10 days, with a deadline of August 8.
“So, what I’m doing is we’re going to do secondary sanctions unless we make a deal,” Trump said.
The planned meeting with Putin appeared to forestall that deadline, at least temporarily. But Trump assured it was a new deadline.
Asked last Wednesday what would happen if Putin didn’t agree to stop the war after the Alaska meeting, Trump said: “There will be very severe consequences.”
The Russian leader hasn’t agreed to stop the war, and the very severe consequences haven’t arrived yet.
The situation is dynamic, particularly with Monday’s meetings at the White House. But the administration appears to be inching back from its threats.
Asked about the sanctions Friday night on Fox News, Trump responded: “We don’t have to think about that right now.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday actually pitched sanctions as an impediment to a potential peace deal. Appearing on multiple shows, he suggested the administration would wait until there was no hope of peace.
“The minute you issue new sanctions … our ability to get them to table will be severely diminished,” Rubio said of Russia on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He added on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” “You’ve basically locked in at least another year to year-and-a-half of war and death and destruction. We may unfortunately wind up there, but we don’t want to wind up there.”
While Trump has called economic punishment “very devastating,” his administration has also recently rather curiously focused on the idea that sanctions on Russia might not even be that effective – noting Putin has dealt with them for years.
In other words, it sounds a lot like they’re laying a predicate for not following through on these threats any time soon.
If that’s the case, it wouldn’t be the biggest surprise. Trump has a tendency to set deadlines for himself that ultimately fall by the wayside. “Two weeks” has become an inside joke in DC political circles, owing to the many times the president has promised a decision or announcement and never followed through. Even when Trump announced the 10-day deadline for Russia, I wrote about how we probably shouldn’t take it at face value.
But as a former version of Trump would seem to agree, major foreign-policy threats are in a different class than promising a policy or personnel decision. Trump got extensive political mileage out of savaging Obama for his red line on Syria, because the stakes were so huge. He pitched the Democratic president as too timid to make good on the threat.
The question now is whether Trump is doing the same with Putin. Maybe Trump has reason to believe there are serious prospects for a peace deal that warrant this pause. But Trump has certainly shown a reluctance to truly get tough with the Russian leader before.
And some more hawkish Republicans are urging Trump to keep up the pressure.
Sen. Lindsey Graham told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that Trump can end the war, while re-upping the importance of the threat of sanctions. And perhaps tellingly, he said it required getting “tough.”
“I’m cautiously optimistic we’ll get there, if we’re tough,” the South Carolina Republican said.
Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, said it was time for the Senate to pass Graham’s sanctions bill.
“I know his style in dealing with these dictators; it’s the velvet glove,” Pence told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
“But I think the hammer needs to come, and it needs to come immediately.”
The hammer appears to have been holstered for now. And you could understand if these Republicans worry that Trump’s harder line on Putin has been, too.
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