WASHINGTON -- When US President Donald Trump said he would make a “major statement” on Russia, it led to speculation he might tap nearly $4 billion in unused US military aid for Ukraine or finally slap sanctions on Moscow and its major trading partners.
Instead, Trump announced that NATO members would send existing weapons like Patriot missile systems to Ukraine and backfill them by buying new ones from the United States.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who joined Trump in the White House for the July 14 announcement, said the dollar amount of weapons shipped to Ukraine would be in the billions, but the two gave no further details on weapons or timing.
The Wall Street Journal, citing two people familiar with the strategy, reported the weapons package for Ukraine could be worth $10 billion.
The "major announcement" he promised showed he has pivoted on his stance on weapons for Ukraine.
But on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump appeared to be unwilling to do the same.
Trump gave Russia -- which has been grinding forward on the battlefield -- another 50 days to agree to a cease-fire before threatening to impose economic penalties on countries trading with Russia that could nudge Moscow to the negotiating table.
“My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,” said Trump, referring to Russia’s almost daily overnight air attacks across Ukraine.
"I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy. It's been proven over the years. He's fooled a lot of people," he added.
Trump has made ending the war in Ukraine a top foreign policy priority, holding at least six calls with Putin and dispatching his envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Moscow on at least three occasions .
But Putin has repeatedly rejected Trump’s request for a 30-day cease-fire, instead stepping up air attacks against Ukraine -- hitting new records on a near-nightly basis.
Trump, who has expressed admiration for Putin as a leader and has described their relations as “very good,” said he thought he was near a deal to end the war on about four occasions.
"I'm very disappointed in President Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn't seem to get there," Trump said.
Trump’s statement shows he is “headed in the right direction," said John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank. But he questioned the need for giving Putin more time.
“Putin has already made it very clear that he has no intention as of right now of negotiating seriously, so I don’t know why Trump is still waiting” on sanctions, Hardie told RFE/RL.
Trump’s statement, nonetheless, was his biggest show of support for Ukraine since taking office in January.
Trump has not sent any new military aid to the embattled country, hoping he could win over Putin and end the war early in his term. His predecessor, Joe Biden, had approved $67 billion in military aid but left almost $4 billion on the table when he left office.
Trump repeatedly criticized Biden’s aid to Ukraine during the campaign trail as he pushed his "America First" agenda. By couching the latest delivery of weapons to Ukraine as sales via NATO, Trump can say he is upholding his campaign promise.
Russian officials brushed off Trump’s remarks.
“In 50 days so many things may happen on the battlefield and in opinion polls that support Western governments. The key thing is that it does not affect our mood at all,” Konstantin Kosachev, a Russian lawmaker who is close to the Kremlin, said in a post on Telegram.
Russia’s main stock market index, MICEX, jumped 2.7 percent following Trump’s comments, a sign that Russian investors had been expecting tougher measures from the White House.
Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the change in Trump’s position on Russia and Ukraine has been “quite striking.”
In an unprecedented diplomatic gesture, Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February following an Oval Office argument that was shown live on television.
Trump accused the Ukrainian leader, who came seeking more weapons, of not wanting to end the war. Days earlier, Trump had called him a “dictator,” a word he has never used to describe Putin, who has ruled Russia for more than a quarter century.
But Ukraine later agreed to Trump’s request for a 30-day cease-fire while Putin dragged his feet on the question, putting forth demands that Kyiv and Western officials considered unreasonable.
“You've seen Trump gravitate progressively over the past couple of months toward a harder-line position when it comes to pushing back against Putin. I think the statement today didn't go as far as it could have, but there has been concrete movement here,” Kupchan told RFE/RL.
Trump put a lot of effort into ending the war, said William Courtney, a former US diplomat and analyst at the RAND Corp, and Putin’s rejection of his overture was “pretty embarrassing” for the administration.
However, Courtney said, Putin had now “overplayed his hand,” turning Trump against him.
During the Oval Office meeting, Trump said he would impose “secondary tariffs” if Russia did not agree to a cease-fire within 50 days, or the beginning of September.
But he did not clarify which countries would be hit with tariffs.
Bipartisan legislation that would hit Russia with new sanctions has been advancing with strong support in the Senate.
However, the Senate's top lawmaker, John Thune, told reporters he was shelving the bill for the moment.
“It sounds like right now the president is going to attempt to do some of this on his own,” Thune was quoted telling 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.”
China, India, and Turkey are major buyers of Russian oil.
“It won’t be easy to put pressure on India because it is a US partner in QUAD while China has leverage over the US in some spheres like rare earth metals,” Courtney told RFE/RL.
CNN later reported, citing an unidentified White House official, that when Trump referred to “secondary tariffs,” he meant 100 percent tariffs on Russia and secondary sanctions on other countries that buy Russian oil. RFE/RL could not immediately confirm that interpretation.
Secondary sanctions are a powerful tool and could force financial institutions and other entities in China, India, and Turkey to avoid doing business with Russia.
Trump hasn’t imposed any new economic penalties on Russia since taking office, undermining the overall sanctions regime. New sanctions must be regularly imposed to stop any attempts at circumventing existing ones through -- for instance -- the creation of shell companies.
Enforcement has also slowed under Trump with just one penalty meted out against individuals circumventing Russian sanctions.
Experts say that imposing new sanctions without stepping up enforcement will offset the impact.
“I think the political will is not there on the Russia sanctions-enforcement side, in a way different, perhaps to the agenda around export controls on China or even sanctions on Iran,” Rachel Ziemba, an analyst at the Center for a New American Strategy, told RFE/RL last week.
Kimberly Donovan, a sanctions expert at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said if the United States wants to get Russia to the negotiating table, it needs to get tougher on Russia’s oil industry.
“I think we probably need to take steps to sanction Russian oil, similar to what we did with Iran, as a means to pressure Putin,” she said.
Iranian oil production tumbled following US sanctions, devastating the nation’s economy.
The Russia sanctions bill would be “of symbolic importance” even if Trump enforces only parts of it, Kupchan said.
“It sends a message to Putin that Trump is prepared to tighten the screws,” he said. [RFE/RL/VP]