TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - U.S. President Donald Trump announced a deal to supply more weapons to Ukraine and threatened to impose high tariffs on Russia, unless a peaceful agreement is reached within 50 days.
The announcement on Monday marked a dramatic policy shift for the U.S. This comes weeks after the Pentagon announced a temporary halt in arms shipments to Ukraine.
However, Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin and hopes the weapons will help end the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has been ongoing for over three years.
Together with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House, Trump told reporters that he is disappointed with Putin and that billions of dollars worth of U.S. weapons will be provided to Ukraine.
“We’re going to make top-of-the-line weapons, and they’ll be sent to NATO,” Trump said, as reported by Aljazeera and ABC News, adding that NATO allies in Washington will bear the cost.
The weapons will include much-needed Patriot air defense missiles for Ukraine, he said.
“It’s a full complement with the batteries,” Trump said. “We’re going to have some come very soon, within days.”
“We have one country that has 17 Patriots getting ready to be shipped … we’re going to work a deal where the 17 will go, or a big portion of the 17 will go to the war site.”
Severe Tariffs
Trump said Russia will be hit with "very severe tariffs" in 50 days if Putin fails to sign peace deals with Ukraine, including secondary tariffs of 100 percent.
“We’re going to be doing secondary tariffs,” Trump said. “If we don’t have a deal in 50 days, it’s very simple, and they’ll be at 100 percent.”
The threat to impose what are called secondary sanctions on Russia, if implemented, would represent a significant shift in Western sanction policy.
During the war, Western nations have largely severed their financial ties with Moscow but have refrained from taking steps that would restrict Russia from selling its oil to other countries.
This has allowed Moscow to continue to rake in hundreds of billions of dollars from oil shipments to buyers such as China and India.
A White House official said Trump was referring to 100 percent tariffs on Russian goods as well as secondary sanctions on other countries that buy its exports.
Members of both U.S. political parties are pushing a bill that would enact such measures, which target other countries buying Russian oil.
The bill would give Trump the authority to impose a 500 percent tariff on any country that helps Russia, but Republican leaders in the House are waiting for Trump's approval to vote.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram that he had spoken with Trump and “thanked him for his readiness to support Ukraine and to continue working together to stop the killings and establish a lasting and just peace.”
Speed is of the Essence
Putin has yet to accept Trump's proposal for an unconditional ceasefire, which was quickly endorsed by Kyiv. In recent days, Russia has launched hundreds of drones to attack Ukrainian cities, which has angered the U.S. president.
The U.S. leader said he thought that “we actually had probably four times a deal,” but then it “wouldn’t happen because bombs would be thrown out that night.”
Trump said that unlike his predecessors, he is not "fooled" by Putin, and in the end, talk is not enough and "action" was needed.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte praised Trump's announcement, saying that Ukraine can now obtain "massive" numbers of military equipment.
“If I was Vladimir Putin today, and hear you speaking about what you were planning to do in 50 days, and this announcement, I would reconsider whether I should not take negotiations about Ukraine more seriously than I was doing at the moment.”
He said that Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, and Canada all want to be part of the rearmament of Ukraine.
Rutte added that "speed is of the essence here," suggesting that some of the weapons will be sent to Ukraine very soon and then replaced with purchases from the U.S.
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