United States President Donald Trump has said he is “p***** off” at his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and has threatened to impose secondary sanctions on Russian oil if Moscow does not agree to a ceasefire to end its war in Ukraine.
“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russian’s fault – which it might not be – but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on all oil coming out of Russia,” Trump said in an interview with NBC on Sunday.
Trump said that the 25 percent tariffs could happen at any moment, adding that he plans to speak with Putin this week.
According to the report, Trump was “angry and p***** off” when the Russian president started questioning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s legitimacy and discussed the prospect of a new leadership in Ukraine.
On Thursday, Putin suggested that a temporary administration under the supervision of the United Nations should be introduced in Ukraine – a proposal swiftly rejected by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Russian officials have repeatedly discredited Zelenskyy’s legitimacy as president, noting that no elections had been held since his term expired.
A vote has not been scheduled in Ukraine because the country’s constitution mandates that elections cannot be held under martial law, which has been in place since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbouring country three years ago.
There was no immediate reaction from Moscow to Trump’s comments.
Russia has called Western sanctions “illegal” and designed for the West to take economic advantage in its rivalry with Russia.
Trump’s latest remarks followed a day of meetings and golf with Finnish President Alexander Stubb over the weekend.
Stubb’s office said he told Trump that a deadline needs to be set for establishing a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire to make it happen, and suggested April 20, since Trump would have been in office then for three months.
US officials have been separately pushing Kyiv to accept a critical minerals agreement, a summary of which suggested that the US was demanding all of Ukraine’s natural resources income for years.
Zelenskyy has said Kyiv’s lawyers needed to review the draft before he could say more about the offer.
Speaking on board Air Force One later on Sunday, Trump accused the Ukrainian leader of attempting to back out of the deal.
“If he does that, he’s got some problems, big, big problems,” Trump told reporters.
“He wants to be a member of NATO, but he’s never going to be a member of NATO. He understands that.”
Trump’s threat of “secondary tariffs” on Russian oil came less than a week after his administration imposed a 25 percent tariff on US imports from any country buying oil or gas from Venezuela.
A similar tariff on US imports from countries that buy Russian oil could hit China and India, two of Moscow’s biggest customers, particularly hard.
In his NBC interview, Trump said Putin knows he is angry with him, but added that he had “a very good relationship with him” and “the anger dissipates quickly … if he does the right thing”.
