President Donald Trump will give Russia until Aug. 8 to agree to a cease-fire deal with Ukraine or face new sanctions.
Trump told reporters on Air Force One on July 29 that he would grant Russian President Vladimir Putin “10 days” to come to the negotiating table in good faith or else face a new tranche of U.S. sanctions and secondary tariffs.
The president expressed some skepticism as to the extent that such a move could influence Putin’s decision-making calculus, but hoped that it would help to end the war in Ukraine.
“I don’t know if it’s going to affect Russia, because [Putin] wants to obviously, probably keep the war going,” Trump said.
“It may or may not affect them, but it could.”
Trump described Russia’s conflict with Ukraine as “a disgusting war” and said that deaths from Russian bombings were increasing.
The Kremlin has not reached out to the White House about the ultimatum, he said.
“I haven’t had any response. It’s a shame,” Trump said.
Trump previously gave Putin 50 days to wind down its assaults on Ukraine and agree to a cease-fire, but said on Monday that he was shortening that deadline due to continued Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilian centers, including the capital, Kyiv.
The new coercive measures will include tariffs, Trump said, and possibly other sanctions aimed at isolating the Russian economy if Moscow continues to refuse to commit to cease-fire negotiations.
In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Moscow had “taken into account President Trump’s statement yesterday,” according to Russian state-run media.
Trump said earlier in the week that he was “very disappointed” in Putin and criticized the Russian leader for continuing to allow strikes on Ukrainian cities.
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said that the new economic actions targeting Russia could come in the form of direct sanctions or “secondary tariffs” that the Trump administration has championed.
Those tariffs impose duties on goods coming from third-party countries that trade with countries sanctioned by the United States.
That means China and India, which are Moscow’s largest trading partners and have continued to trade with Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, could be heavily tariffed to undermine Russia’s international economic support.
Trump previously threatened a 100 percent levy on goods from third countries that trade with Russia if Moscow did not agree to a peace deal with Kyiv within the 50-day deadline.
“We’re going to do secondary sanctions, unless we have a deal,” Trump said on July 28.
“[Putin’s] got to make a deal. Too many people are dying. It’s a really bloody war.”
