Behind Trump’s tough Russia talk, doubts and missing details, the NYT says. The U.S. Senate hits brakes on Russia sanctions package after Trump pledged to take action Monday. Trump considered sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, but they’re off the delivery list for now, according to a WP column.
Behind Trump’s tough Russia talk, doubts and missing details, NYT says
President Trump’s new plan to send weapons to Ukraine and his simultaneous threat of harsh penalties on Russia’s trading partners reflect a dramatic shift in his position on the war, but his proposals leave key details unclear, The New York Times said Monday. The paragraphs below are quoted from the article.
Speaking alongside NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, at the White House on Monday, Mr. Trump said that Patriot air defense systems and other arms would “quickly” be transferred to Ukraine, which is in desperate need of more weapons to fend off Russia’s invasion.
Mr. Trump said the United States would sell those arms to European nations, which would ship them to Ukraine or use them to replace weapons they send to the country from their existing stocks.
But Pentagon officials said later that many details were still being worked out.
And experts doubted the credibility of Mr. Trump’s threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on Russia’s trading partners if President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia did not agree to a cease-fire within 50 days.
Mr. Trump is also notorious for setting deadlines that he does not enforce, raising questions about whether he will act if the 50-day timer he has set for Mr. Putin expires.
News site The New Voice of Ukraine rounds up Trump’s change of heart on Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi described a phone call he had on July 4 with Trump as the “best” he’d had in recent memory.
After the call, Trump spoke positively about supplying additional support to Ukraine. He also suggested that the United States would sell more Patriot missiles to Ukraine. “They need them for defense. I don’t want to see people killed,” he told reporters on Air Force One.
Trump announced on July 7 that U.S. weapons deliveries would resume. “We’re going to send some more weapons. We have to. They have to be able to defend themselves,” Trump told reporters during a White House event with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night.
Zelenskyi and Trump spoke on the phone again on Monday, July 14.
Sitting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump told reporters he was disappointed in Russian leader Vladimir Putin and that billions of dollars of U.S. weapons would go to Ukraine. “We’re going to make top-of-the-line weapons, and they’ll be sent to NATO,” Trump said, adding that Washington’s NATO allies would pay for them.
Senate hits brakes on Russia sanctions package after Trump pledged to take action Monday
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he would hold off on advancing a closely watched package of sanctions targeting Russia’s trading partners after President Donald Trump said he was prepared to act himself later this summer if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t move toward a peace deal with Ukraine, according to a Monday article by Politico. The paragraphs below are quoted from the piece.
“It sounds like right now the president is going to attempt to do some of this on his own,” Thune told reporters. “If at some point the president concludes that it makes sense and adds value and leverage that he needs in those negotiations to move the bill, then we’ll do it. We’ll be ready to go.”
Trump on Monday threatened to impose “secondary tariffs” of up to 100 percent on countries that still trade with Russia. The Senate legislation would authorize even steeper duties on list of nations that includes China, India and Brazil.
“We’re going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don’t have a [Russia-Ukraine peace] deal within 50 days,” Trump said during a meeting on Monday with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “Secondary tariffs are very, very powerful.”
A bill crafted by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that has 85 Senate co-sponsors would authorize Trump to impose secondary tariffs of at least 500 percent on imported goods from countries such as China, Brazil and India that still trade with Russia.
It also would authorize Trump to raise tariffs on remaining U.S. imports from Russia to at least 500 percent, a move that likely would have less force than secondary tariffs because of previous sanctions that have already greatly reduced trade with Moscow.
Thune suggested Trump’s threat meant the Senate would no longer need to pass the Graham-Blumenthal bill.
“We are going to try as best we can … coordinate strategies with the White House, obviously with the House,” Thune said. “So we will have it ready to go at a minute’s notice.”
Action in the House also appeared unlikely following Trump’s remarks. Asked if sanctions legislation would come up before the House leaves later this month for its summer recess, Majority Leader Steve Scalise said, “Not right now.”
Unilateral action from Trump, he suggested, could preempt a standalone sanctions bill altogether: “If anybody’s going to be able to get Putin to the table to finally agree to peace, it’s President Trump.”
For his part, Trump said Monday he did not think a 500 percent tariff rate was necessary “because at a certain point it doesn’t matter [how much higher the tariff is]. 100 percent is going to serve the same function.”
In a joint statement, Graham and Blumenthal praised both Trump’s tariff threat and his plan to sell American-manufactured weapons to NATO for use by Ukraine.
“However, the ultimate hammer to bring about the end of this war will be tariffs against countries, like China, India and Brazil, that prop up Putin’s war machine by purchasing cheap Russian oil and gas,” the senators said.
Trump considered sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, they’re off delivery list for now, according to WP column
Trump considered sending Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. The Tomahawks are off the delivery list for now, but they could be deployed later if Trump wants even more leverage, David Ignatius said in a column for The Washington Post published on Tuesday. The paragraphs below are quoted from the article.
Trump also considered sending Tomahawk cruise missiles, the same weapons fired against Iranian targets last month. If fired from Ukraine, these could hit Moscow and St. Petersburg, and they were included in discussion as late as Friday. But the Tomahawks are off the delivery list for now, I’m told. They could be deployed later if Trump wants even more leverage.
Trump’s determination to squeeze Putin was conveyed in a conversation last week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a source told me. Trump asked Zelensky why he didn’t hit Moscow. “We can if you give us the weapons,” Zelensky said. Trump said Ukraine needed to put more pressure on Putin, not just Moscow but St. Petersburg, too.
What Trump didn’t talk about is that the military assistance might also include authorization for some powerful new offensive weapons. I’m told by a source involved in the decision that this is likely to include permission to use the 18 long-range ATACMS missiles now in Ukraine at their full range of 300 kilometers (about 190 miles). That wouldn’t reach all the way to Moscow or St. Petersburg, but it would strike military bases, airfields and supply depots deep inside Russia that are now out of range. The package might also include more ATACMS.
Pentagon officials have for months urged deeper strikes into Russia using ATACMS. Each time the range limit was extended, the Russians simply moved their planes and other equipment beyond the Ukrainians’ reach. That will be harder now.
Trump decided to escalate for three reasons, according to a source familiar with administration discussions. First, he believed that Putin was disrespecting him, feigning a readiness to make peace but ignoring the U.S. president’s call for a ceasefire. Second, he saw the efficacy of U.S. military power in the use of B-2 bombers and Tomahawk missiles against Iran. And third, he thought Putin would only negotiate if threatened with greater force. As the Russians like to say, Trump decided to “escalate to de-escalate.”