Trump threatens Ukraine with sanctions and tariffs
Washington could impose sanctions and tariffs on both Russia and Ukraine if the two adversaries fail to make progress in settling hostilities, US President Donald Trump has said.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said that it “takes two to tango,” and suggested that Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky “was not exactly innocent.”
“Thousands of young people, mostly young people, are dying every single week. If I can save that, by doing sanctions or by just being me, or by using a very strong tariff system that’s very costly to Russia or Ukraine or whoever we have,” Trump stated.
He also reiterated his readiness to slap new restrictions on Moscow. “We want to have an end. We have economic sanctions. I’m talking about economic because we’re not going to get into a world war,” he said.
Trump criticized his predecessor, Joe Biden, calling him “grossly incompetent” for allowing the Russia-Ukraine conflict to happen in the first place.
“Nobody goes into a war thinking they’re going to lose. They go in – I’m sure that Ukraine thought they were going to win. It’s going to be, you know, we’re going to win. You’re going to beat somebody that’s 15 times your size. Biden shouldn’t have let that happen,” Trump stated.
The US president also appeared to dismiss Moscow’s concerns about the Zelensky's legitimacy.
“Doesn’t matter what they say. Everybody’s posturing. It’s all bullsh*t, ok? Everybody’s posturing,” Trump told reporters.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s stance in an interview with NBC aired on Sunday, calling Zelensky the “de facto head of the regime,” and stressed the person signing any peace deal must have legal authority to do so.
