President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he felt it “was time” to hit Russia with tougher sanctions, a significant escalation amid his latest diplomatic push to end Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.
“Today is a very big day in terms of what we’re doing. These are tremendous sanctions. These are very big,” Trump said as he met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office. “They’re against their two big oil companies, and we hope that they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled.”
“I just felt it was time. We’ve waited a long time,” Trump said when asked about the timing of his decision, which he’s threatened for the past several months.
The Treasury Department said the new economic penalties will target Russia’s two largest oil companies, Open Joint Stock Company Rosneft Oil Company and Lukoil OAO, as well as their subsidiaries.
Rosneft and Lukoil are estimated to account for nearly half of all Russian oil production.
“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,”Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine. Treasury is prepared to take further action if necessary to support President Trump’s effort to end yet another war. We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”
Bessent earlier Wednesday hinted the action was imminent, telling reporters there would be a “substantial pickup” in sanctions against Russia.
The sanctions come after Trump reversed course and called off a second summit with Russia’s Putin that had been expected to take place in Hungary in the coming weeks.
Trump said on Wednesday he canceled the meeting because “it didn’t feel right to me.”
“It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get,” Trump said, though he adde they would do it sometime “in the future” and maintained he believed Putin wanted to achieve peace.
NATO’s Rutte, sitting alongside Trump, said the sanctions boost pressure on Putin to come to the table and negotiate.
“It’s all about changing the calculus, making sure that Putin understands that the president’s vision this weekend of having a ceasefire — stop where they are, as you literally said — that this has to be step one now, and for him to really accept that vision and to come to the table and then you have to put pressure. And this is exactly what you did today,” Rutte said.
The post Trump hits Russian oil companies with sanctions: ‘It was time’ appeared first on ABC News.
