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Donald Trump has threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs and other financial penalties if the war in Ukraine does not end soon, as he pledged to send more weapons to Kyiv through Nato allies.
During a meeting in the Oval Office with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte on Monday, the US president said he was “very unhappy” with Moscow over the lack of progress towards a deal to end the conflict.
“We are very unhappy — I am — with Russia,” Trump said. “I’m disappointed in President [Vladimir] Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago.”
“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100 per cent, you’d call them secondary tariffs,” he added. The tariffs would be “biting” and “very, very powerful”.
A White House official later said the US was prepared to use “severe sanctions and tariffs” against Russia.
Washington can leverage its role at the heart of global finance to cut people and countries off from the international economy through its sprawling sanctions programme.
Secondary tariffs or sanctions would ratchet up the pressure on Moscow by punishing third-party entities, industries or countries that do business with Russia.
In March, Trump announced he would apply “secondary tariffs” of 25 per cent to the US imports of any countries buying Venezuelan oil.
He has also raised the prospect of applying “secondary tariffs” to hit countries that trade with Moscow as he has grown increasingly frustrated with Putin’s intransigence in peace talks.
“You can do tariffs or you can do sanctions, those are both tools in his toolbox,” said US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick on Monday afternoon.
“We’ve been very successful in settling wars” with trade, Trump claimed, citing conflicts between India and Pakistan, and Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “I am grateful to President Trump for his readiness to help protect our people’s lives.” He added: “Russia’s war financing must be cut off.”
The Kremlin did not immediately react to Trump’s announcement. Konstantin Kosachev, deputy speaker of Russia’s senate, wrote on social media that “the Europeans will have to keep shelling out [for arms supplies to Kyiv] . . . the only beneficiary is the US defence industry.”
He added: “Over 50 days a whole lot can change on the battlefield and in the moods of those in power in the US and Nato. But our mood won’t be affected at all.”
Trump also on Monday confirmed plans to send weapons to Ukraine, including Patriot missile systems.
The president said “billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment” would be purchased from the US by Nato allies to “be quickly distributed to the battlefield” in Ukraine.
Rutte said Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada all hoped to be part of the weapons deal.
Trump said: “I spoke with Germany, spoke with most of the larger [Nato] countries, and they are really enthusiastic about this.”
The weapons deal included “everything”, the president said. “It’s Patriots. It’s all of them. It’s a full complement with the batteries.”
Trump suggested some Patriots would come from Norway, and said one country had 17 Patriot systems “getting ready to be shipped”, which could be given to Kyiv “very quickly”.
Rutte said this would be “only the first wave” of weapons to Ukraine, adding more would follow.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Trump had taken “an important initiative” by allowing more weapons deliveries to Ukraine, adding Berlin would play a “decisive role”.
Patriot interceptor missiles are crucial for Ukraine’s defences against Russian air attacks. The US-made system is the only one in Kyiv’s arsenal capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles. Rutte stressed the Ukraine weapons deal would take into account the US’s own stockpile.
Moscow has in recent weeks intensified its aerial bombardments of Ukrainian cities. Hundreds of Iran-designed suicide drones have been aimed at civilian and military infrastructure alongside cruise and ballistic missiles.
Ukraine’s air defences have been in short supply, forcing its military to make difficult decisions about which incoming weapons to shoot down. While Kyiv’s interception rate is high — often about 70 per cent — dozens of drones and several missiles get past its air defences in each attack.
According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years were recorded in June, with 232 people killed and 1,343 injured.
Additional reporting by Laura Pitel and Max Seddon in Berlin
