US President Donald Trump has said that the US will provide “top-of-the-line weapons” to Ukraine through Nato nations and threatened Russia with heavy tariffs if an agreement to stop the war is not made in the next 50 days.
“We want to ensure Ukraine can do what it wishes to do,” Trump said after a meeting with Nato leader Mark Rutte in Washington. Rutte has confirmed that the US decided to “massively supply Ukraine with what is needed through NATO” and that the Europeans would pick up the tab. European nations will send Kyiv their own Patriot air defence systems, which Ukraine depends on to deflect Russia’s lethal air attacks, and alternatives will then be provided by the US, Trump claimed.
But the president did indicate that “top-of-the-line weapons” that cost billions of dollars would be “distributed to the battlefield relatively quickly” to aid Ukraine. If I were Vladimir Putin today. I would consider whether I should not listen more seriously to negotiations regarding Ukraine,” Rutte stated, nodding as Trump listened.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X that he spoke with Trump after he met with Rutte, and thanked him for his “willingness to support Ukraine and to continue working together to stop the killings and establish a lasting and just peace”. We had discussed the required methods and measures with the President to better protect citizens from Russian aggression and reinforce our positions. We are willing to work as fruitfully as possible to make peace,” he stated.
In terms of tariffs, Trump stated that the US would apply 100% retaliatory tariffs against Russia’s remaining trading partners if a peace agreement with Ukraine were not achieved within 50 days. This would mean that any nation importing from Russia would be subjected to the tax to sell to America.
For instance, if India continues to buy oil from Russia, American businesses that import Indian products would be subject to a 100% import tax, or tariff, upon the arrival of goods to American shores. This would so inflate the cost of the goods that US companies would have a preference to purchase them at a lower price elsewhere, meaning India would lose money from the sale.
The aim is also to cripple the economy of Russia. In theory, if Moscow couldn’t earn money by selling oil to other countries, it would earn less money to fund its war in Ukraine. Since oil and gas supply nearly a third of Moscow’s state budget and over 60% of its exports, 100% tariffs may make a bit of a hole in Russia’s purse.
Nevertheless, the Moscow Stock Exchange Index jumped sharply on the news, possibly because investors were anticipating Trump, who teasingly last week promised a “major statement” about Russia, to commit even more severe measures. While information regarding both tariffs and the Nato arms deal was minimal, Monday was the first time that Trump committed new military gear to Ukraine since coming back to the White House.
The briefing also stood out for the tone of the US president, whose language on Vladimir Putin has become progressively vitriolic. Not for the first time, Trump suggested Kyiv was partly to blame for Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022. But he largely seemed disheartened at the failure of progress towards ending a war which he once seemed to think could be resolved comparatively easily.
When questioned about his tie with Putin, Trump replied that the two have a lot to say “about getting this thing done” but expressed his annoyance at the way “nice phone calls” with the Russian president are followed by destructive air strikes on Ukraine, which have become more intense and frequent. After that happens three or four times, you say: the talk doesn’t mean anything,” Trump said.
“I don’t want to label him an assassin, but he’s a hard man. It has been tested over the years, he deceived a lot of people – Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden,” he continued. “He didn’t deceive me. At some point in time, talk doesn’t talk, it’s got to be action.”
There were two rounds of ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine earlier this year, but no further meetings have yet been planned – something Moscow has attributed to Kyiv. Ukrainian President Zelensky is presently entertaining US representative Keith Kellogg in Kyiv and earlier on Monday welcomed a “productive meeting”, thanking Trump for his support.
The Kremlin did not have an initial comment on the announcement, but reaction filtering in from Moscow seemed to reflect a degree of relief. Pro-Kremlin commentator and ex-Putin aide Sergei Markov described the tariffs announcement as “a bluff” that showed Trump had “given up trying to bring peace to Ukraine.”. Senator Konstantin Kosachev said that “if this is all Trump had to say about Ukraine today, then so far it’s been much ado about nothing”.
Much may change in 50 days, “both on the battlefield and in the moods of the powers that be in the US and NATO,” Kosachev wrote. Trump’s move was welcomed by critics, even from within the opposing Democratic Party.
The sending of Patriot missiles to Ukraine, “made possible by the significant investments of our European allies, will spare hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives from Putin’s brutal aggression,” said Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the senior Democrat on the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
She termed the move “positive, but long overdue” and indicated that the US must have “a sustained flow of security assistance to Ukraine over the long term” to persuade Putin to stop the war. Denys Podilchuk, a 39-year-old Ukrainian dentist based in Kyiv, welcomed European leaders’ efforts to influence Trump.
“I am glad that at last European politicians, for their patience and beliefs, have managed to slightly tilt him (Trump) onto our side, because right from the outset it was evident that he did not so much want to assist us,” he said to Reuters.
