United States President Donald Trump bristled on Wednesday when a Polish reporter suggested that he hadn’t done enough to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into ending Russia’s war on Ukraine, at a time when Europe and Ukraine are trying to convince Trump to impose sanctions or other punitive measures against Russia, as Moscow continues its assault on Ukraine.
He then pushed back at the reporter, listing measures he’d taken against Russian and threatening consequences if Moscow did not agree to peace.
The interaction came just a day before Trump spoke with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after he met with European leaders on Thursday in a separate European summit in Paris to discuss security reassurances for Ukraine in the event of a peace deal. The details of Trump and Zelenskyy’s meeting have not been made public yet.
Here is what we know about the action Trump has taken so far during his second US presidency to end this war.
Didn’t Trump promise to end the Russia-Ukraine war in just a day?
Yes. Indeed, the president has been keen to resolve several global conflicts, and has insisted that he is deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
But, despite promising repeatedly during his election campaign last year that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of resuming the US presidency, the war rages on.
Following several Trump-led meetings and calls with Putin and Zelenskyy, the two sides are still far apart from a truce as several disagreements remain over territory concessions.
Trump has pushed for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, but that has not happened, with Ukraine accusing Russia of avoiding a two-way meeting in order to prolong the conflict.
At the end of his visit to China on Wednesday this week, however, Putin stated that while he was not against such a meeting, there might not be any point to it. He suggested that Zelenskyy visit him in Moscow, a proposal that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has firmly rejected.
What did Trump say about Putin this week?
President Trump made the comments about Putin following a meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, who was in the US to seek more American troop presence in his country, which borders Ukraine, in case of a Russian incursion into its own territory.
Trump recounted his efforts to end the Ukraine war at the press conference that followed the meeting. However, the US president visibly bristled when a reporter suggested that he had not done enough to pressure Russia’s Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
He pushed back at the suggestion, saying he had done several things. Trump added that he would continue to pressure Putin into making a decision, and that there would be consequences if Moscow failed to toe the line.
“Whatever his decision is, we’ll either be happy about it or unhappy,” Trump said, referring to Putin. “And if we’re unhappy about it, you’ll see things happen,” he said, without gving details of potential consequences.
Trump also repeated his past claims of having ended seven wars – including between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Pakistan and India; Thailand and Cambodia; and Israel and Iran. He added that he’d initially believed pressuring Putin into ending the Ukraine war would be easier because of the warm relations both men enjoyed in the past.
“But you never know with war … I have no message to President Putin. He knows where I stand, and he’ll make a decision one way or the other,” Trump said when asked if he had any messages to pass on to the Russian leader.
What steps has Trump taken to pressure Russia?
Tariffs against India
At the press briefing on Wednesday, Trump cited the high trade tariffs he has levied on India for buying Russian oil as one way he has pressured Putin. The US initially slapped a 25 percent levy on India, the world’s fifth-largest economy and a close Russian ally, in July, as part of Trump’s ongoing tariff wars. That rate was then doubled as punishment for trading with Russia.
The 50 percent tariffs, which took effect on August 27, have hit India hard. Experts say they will greatly reduce Indian exports to the US, its biggest trading partner, and potentially affect thousands of jobs. The cost to India’s economy could run to billions of dollars. India’s main exports to the US include pharmaceuticals, gemstones, carpets, apparel and jewellery. US levies on India are among the highest Trump has imposed.
India has not retaliated to Trump’s move. However, New Delhi has signalled its ire to Washington by deepening ties with Russia and China, both US adversaries. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China this week for a security forum. He also shared a limousine ride with Russia’s Putin in China.
However, on Wednesday of this week, Trump told a radio show that he was not worried about a Russia-China axis against the US. He did express disappointment in Putin, however, adding that the US wanted to “help people live” in Ukraine.
Secondary sanctions on Russia’s allies
Trump has suggested that more “secondary sanctions” – such as the higher tariffs imposed on India – are in the works for other Russian allies as well.
“You’re going to see a lot more. So this is a taste,” Trump said in the Oval Office on August 8, after the initial tariffs were placed on India. However, the White House has provided no further details.
Experts say China could be targeted next. The US and China have already engaged in one intense trade war this year, with both levying more-than-100-percent tariffs on each other at one point. Following talks, the US is currently levying an average of 57.6 percent import levies on all Chinese goods, while China has imposed an average of 32.6 percent tariff on US imports.
Additional sanctions on Russia
Trump has also threatened to pile more sanctions on Russia if Putin fails to agree to peace with Ukraine. He renewed that threat on August 22, a week after hosting Putin at talks in Alaska.
“I’m going to make a decision as to what we do, and it’s going to be, it’s going to be a very important decision, and that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both, or we do nothing and say ‘It’s your fight’,” Trump told reporters.
Since Trump took office this year, the US has not imposed more sanctions on Russia. There were extensive US sanctions in place on Russia already, however.
Some travel and business transaction bans on specific individuals, officials and entities go as far back as 2014, when Russia annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea. Russia’s intelligence services, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and the Federal Security Service (FSB), as well as four unnamed individuals and three companies, were all sanctioned for their involvement in Russia’s interference in the 2016 US elections before President Barack Obama left office. Two “Russian compounds” in New York and Maryland, where some of the interference work was done, were also shut down.
In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the US sanctioned Russian hackers, officials and related organisations which were found to have been involved in the 2016 election interference and for other “malign” actions. High-profile names – such as Putin’s former son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov and a Russian state weapons company – were named.
In August 2019, Trump approved additional sanctions forbidding the granting of loans to Russian entities or other assistance from Western monetary bodies like the World Bank. Licensing restrictions were also introduced for chemical or biological weapons exported to Russia for fears of proliferation.
Following Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the administration of former US President Joe Biden expanded sanctions to include bans on Russian oil sales, transactions with Russian banks and the confiscation of Russian-owned property overseas. Export controls were further imposed on US-made high-tech material being exported to Russia to reduce Moscow’s access to Western technology.
Weapons sales to NATO
In July, Trump struck a deal with European NATO countries to sell more US weapons, such as Patriot missile air defence systems, for Ukraine’s use. Trump said the weapons would be rapidly sent to the front lines of the war and that Ukraine’s European allies would pay for them.
On August 28, the US State Department confirmed that the US is set to send weapons worth $825m to Ukraine as part of that deal. Ukraine, the statement read, had requested 3,500 extended-range cruise missiles and 3,350 GPS navigation systems, and those would be delivered, in addition to other equipment such as batteries and training software.
“This proposed sale will improve Ukraine’s capability to meet current and future threats by further equipping it to conduct self-defense and regional security missions. Ukraine will have no difficulty absorbing these articles and services into its armed forces,” the US statement read.
The sale, which was paid for by Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands, as well as in part by the US, was pending approval from Congress, the statement added.
What happens next?
On Thursday, Zelenskyy spoke with Trump by phone following his meeting with European leaders in Paris.
The Paris summit aimed to gather consensus about security guarantees for Ukraine once a peace deal is reached. The so-called coalition of the willing discussed measures like deploying a peace force to Ukraine, but no concrete announcements were made after the meeting. US envoy Steve Witkoff was also present in Paris and met with Zelenskyy.
The Ukrainian leader earlier said he would push Trump for more sanctions on Russia. He also said there were “signals” that the US would act as a “backstop”, suggesting that the US may be willing to provide some form of protective support for Ukraine in the future. Zelenskyy made those comments earlier this week at a press briefing in Copenhagen where European ministers met to discuss security.
Reporting from the White House in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Al Jazeera correspondent Alan Fisher said there was no confirmation of the sequence of events yet, but that it is likely that following Zelensky’s chat with Trump, the US president will then have a call with Putin to further push for a concrete peace package.
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