US President Donald Trump has signaled his readiness to escalate sanctions against Russia amid continued Russian defiance over the Ukraine war, but he did not specify what those measures would be as he confronts Moscow’s intransigence in ending the conflict.
Asked by a reporter on Sunday in Washington if he was ready to move the second phase of sanctions, he said, “Yeah, I am”.
The terse reply gave no inkling of what – or who — he had in mind, but when a reporter asked him in mid-August about China, which had been spared punitive tariffs for buying Russian oil, he said, “I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something might have to “in two or three weeks.”
He had, on the other hand, singled out India for the oil sanctions and imposed a 25 per cent punitive tariff.
It’s been more than three weeks since Trump had his summit with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for his peace diplomacy to end the Ukraine War.
Although he pitched high hopes, a meeting between Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has yet to take place, and Russia has increased its attacks on that country.
White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said that following the heightened Russian attacks, “I’m sure that there’s going to be a lot of talk today and tomorrow about the level of sanctions and the timing of sanctions”.
Asked by a CBS News interviewer about the timing of any new sanctions, he said, “It’s up to the president in the end. But yes, it’s a very disappointing set of affairs”.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed to a possible way of increasing sanctions on Russian oil buyers by getting the European Union (EU) to join the US in putting secondary sanctions to force Moscow to negotiate.
He ignored the fact that the EU was itself directly buying gas from Russia and indirectly by getting from India products made with Russian oil.
That could be a problem for the EU to impose punitive sanctions on India, as Bessent suggested, while continuing purchases from Russia.
Bessent told an NBC interviewer, “If the US and the EU can come in, do more sanctions, secondary tariffs on the countries that buy Russian oil, the Russian economy will be in full collapse, and that will bring President Putin to the table”.
“We are prepared to increase pressure on Russia, but we need our European partners to follow us”, he added.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky drew attention to the double standards where the EU was concerned.
He told an ABC News interviewer, “They (some Europeans) continue to buy oil and Russian gas. And this is not fair. If to be open and to be clear, it’s not fair”.
Zelensky defended the punitive sanctions on India, calling it the “right idea”.
The interviewer recalled Trump’s recent Truth Social post after the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Putin, and China’s President Xi Jinping, “Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China”.
And she asked Zelensky, “Did the plan backfire of trying to put sanctions on them?”
“No”, he said. “I think the idea to put tariffs on the countries who continue make deals with Russia, I think this is right idea”.
