Trump warns Putin: make peace or face new sanctions

US will also provide Ukraine with more arms through Nato

- ANDREW FEINBERG IN WASHINGTON DC

The US could impose crippling secondary sanctions on Russia if the three-year-old war Moscow has been waging against Ukraine is not brought to an end by 2 September, Donald Trump has said.

Speaking in the Oval Office yesterday alongside Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, Mr Trump said he is “very unhappy” with Russia and Vladimir Putin, and pledged to impose what he described as “very severe tariffs” on Moscow “if we don’t have a deal in 50 days”.

“[’m disappointed in President Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn’t seem to get there. So based on that, we’re going to be doing secondary tariffs. If we don’t have a deal in 50 days, it’s very simple, and they’ll be at 100 per cent, and that’s the way it is. That can be more simple. It’s just the way it is. I hope we don’t have to do it,” he said.

While President Trump has often used tariffs - taxes paid by American importers on foreign goods — as a general-purpose cudgel against adversaries and allies alike, Russia has almost no current trade relationship with the United States on account of sanctions imposed by the previous Biden administration to punish Moscow in the years since the war began.

The tariffs the president is threatening to impose this time would actually be secondary sanctions designed to punish countries purchasing Russian oil, by taxing imports from those nations at levels as high as 100 per cent. They could effectively double the cost of imports from places such as China, India and Germany, as all three are major US trading partners that still purchase Russian petroleum products.