U.S. President Donald Trump has said that he is losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin and could issue new tariffs and sanctions to compel the Russian leader to enter cease-fire negotiations with Ukraine.
Trump said that his patience with Putin’s refusal to participate in peace talks with Ukraine was “running out and running out fast,” during an interview with Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” on Sep. 12.
The president added that “it does take two to tango,” saying that Putin’s recalcitrance on committing to peace talks was in part due to the Russian leader’s mutual animosity with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“There’s tremendous hatred between him and Zelenskyy,” Trump said.
The comments follow a high-profile summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska in August, which aimed to bring Russia back to the negotiating table but ultimately did not result in the resumption of cease-fire talks.
Trump renewed those threats during Friday’s interview, saying the United States would have to “come down very, very strong” on Russia if Putin did not commit to peace talks with Ukraine.
When asked what coming down on Russia would look like, Trump said that it would involve “hitting [Russia] very hard with sanctions to banks and having to do with oil and tariffs also.”
The difficulty lies in getting either Kyiv or Moscow to relent on any of several key war aims, with Zelenskyy refusing to consider the giving up of any territory to Russia and Putin demanding that it be given territory it has failed to conquer.
Trump said during Friday’s interview that Russian assets “shouldn’t be close to Poland.”