US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he is ready to hit Russia with sweeping economic sanctions if President Vladimir Putin refuses to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine’s long-running war.
“It’s very, very serious what I have in mind, if I have to do it, but I want to see it end,” Trump told reporters at a White House Cabinet meeting. “We have economic sanctions. I’m talking about economics because we’re not going to get into a world war.”
Trump has so far withheld sanctions against Putin, hoping to push both Moscow and Kyiv toward peace. He is pressing for direct talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin, though the Kremlin has shown no sign of agreeing.
“It will not be a world war, but it will be an economic war,” Trump warned. “An economic war is going to be bad, and it’s going to be bad for Russia, and I don’t want that.”
The president also made clear his stance was not one-sided. “Zelenskyy is not exactly innocent, either,” he said, suggesting he could apply tariffs against either country if it helped secure peace.
US and European officials are meanwhile weighing what long-term security guarantees Washington might offer Kyiv if a deal is reached, including air support or intelligence sharing. But with little sign of diplomatic progress, Trump dangled the threat of what he called “a very strong tariff system that’s very costly to Russia or Ukraine.”
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With inputs from Reuters