From The Hill: President Trump told reporters he plans to shorten the timeline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine to within the next two weeks based on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continued attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Trump had said on July 14 that Russia would face additional sanctions and tariffs if it did not stop fighting in Ukraine within 50 days, putting the deadline at Sept. 2. But on Monday, the president indicated he would push up that timeframe to early August.
The president said the U.S. would impose “severe” tariffs on Russia if Moscow did not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine in the next 50 days. Trump indicated he would impose a 100 percent “secondary” tariff, which would target other nations that do business with Russia in a bid to further hurt the Russian economy.
“We thought we had that settled numerous times and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever,” Trump said as he met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“You have bodies lying all over the street,” he continued. “And I say, ‘That’s not the way to do it.’ So we’ll see what happens with that. I’m very disappointed. I’m disappointed in President Putin.
“I’m going to reduce that 50 days I gave him to a lesser number because I think I already know the answer,” Trump added.
The president later indicated what the new timeline might be.
“Yeah, I’d say 10 to 12 days,” he said. “I’ll announce it probably tonight or tomorrow, but there’s no reason to wait. If you know what the answer is going to be, why wait?”
“It would be sanctions and maybe tariffs, secondary tariffs,” he said refering to what the consequences would be.
He then lamented the opportunities Russia had to end the war.
“All I know is we’d have a good talk and it seemed on let’s say three occasions it seemed that we were going to have a ceasefire and maybe peace and you divide it up and you do whatever you have to do that, obviously to get to the end, and all of a sudden uh missiles are flying into Kiev and other places. And I say, ‘What’s that all about? I spoke to him three, four hours ago, and it looked like we were on our way.’”
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