Trump warns Putin of 100% tariffs if Ukraine peace deal isn’t reached in 50 days

U.S. President Donald Trump once again turned to tariffs — not this time to balance trade, but to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into negotiating with Ukraine and agreeing to a ceasefire. “I’m very, very unhappy [with Putin],” Trump said, before announcing the “big news” the White House had promised for Monday: “We’re going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don’t have a deal within 50 days, it’s very simple. And there’ll be at 100%.”

“You call them secondary tariffs, you know what that means,” Trump added, without clarifying how those tariffs would be implemented. The U.S. has limited direct trade with Russia, so these so-called secondary tariffs are a way to hurt Moscow by targeting trade from countries that maintain economic ties with Russia.

Trump made the threat during a visit by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to the White House. The war in Ukraine was the main item on the agenda, and Washington had been anticipating a “major shift” in Trump’s Russia strategy. That comes after weeks of growing frustration from the U.S. president toward Putin.

Trump said he often talks with the Russian leader, though he often leaves conversations with the impression that more progress was made than Russian actions on the ground later reflect, such as the recent uptick in Russian airstrikes. “My conversations with them are always very pleasant,” said Trump. "And then the missiles go off that night."

“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy. He has fooled a lot of people. He fooled [Bill] Clinton, Bush [Jr.], [Barak] Obama, Biden. He didn’t fool me,” said the Republican president, who added that he thought he had reached an agreement with Putin ”four times.“ He also insisted that Ukraine is ”Biden’s war,” which with him in the Oval Office would not have happened.

Rutte’s visit took place just hours after Trump announced on Sunday to the press that Washington would send Patriot missile defense systems to Ukraine, but that the cost of producing the “top-of-the-line” weapons would be borne by the European partners of the Atlantic Alliance, as he repeated three times. Monday’s appearance also served to confirm the dispatch of the Patriots.

In that conversation with journalists, Trump also criticized Putin for breaking his word in the talks they have held since his return to the White House: “I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done, and I always hang up and say, ‘Well, that was a nice phone call’, and then missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city.”

The Patriot missile systems are sold by U.S. arms manufacturers to intermediary countries, which then transfer them to Ukraine. These advanced anti-aircraft batteries require months of training for effective operation, training that Ukrainian soldiers will also need to undergo. Ukraine has long requested this type of support, making the announcement a welcome relief — especially after the Pentagon’s earlier decision to pause arms shipments, a move Trump later distanced himself from.

Conflict resolution

On Monday, Trump said: “I use trade for a lot of things. It’s great for settling wars.” He claimed that during his nearly six months in the White House, he has resolved several conflicts: between Rwanda and the Congo; the nuclear escalation between Pakistan and India; and between Kosovo and Serbia. Obviously, this attempt to take credit for these achievements is, at the very least, an exaggeration.

Trump also spoke about the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Gaza, which has been reported as nearly finalized for the past week but has yet to materialize. Regarding the Gaza Strip, he called it “the worst real estate deals ever made.” “They gave up on oceanfront property,” said the U.S. president, who has a background in real estate.

While speaking about conflict resolution, Trump lamented not having been able to end the war in Ukraine, despite having promised during his campaign that it would take him just one day to do so.

Rutte’s meeting in the Oval Office was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Washington time but started 75 minutes late. On Rutte’s agenda were also meetings with the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, both of whom attended the meeting with Vice President J.D. Vance alongside Trump.

This was not the first time the NATO secretary general and Trump have met in Washington; Rutte traveled to the capital last March. They had already expressed mutual appreciation, though nothing foreshadowed what would happen at the end of June during the NATO summit held in the Netherlands. That summit will be remembered for the European allies’ commitment to increase defense spending — as Trump had wanted — and for Rutte’s somewhat awkward compliments to the U.S. president.

When he took over the leadership of the Atlantic Alliance, Rutte — the former Dutch prime minister from 2010 to 2024 — made headlines and became a meme when Trump made public a private message in which Rutte congratulated him in capital letters for the June 21 bombing in Iran and assumed Europeans would pay what Trump had demanded (all allies agreed except Spain). At another point during the summit, the NATO Secretary General called the president of the world’s leading power “daddy.”

Rutte defended his strategy of praising Trump, which so far has been effective, in an interview with The New York Times Sunday edition: “I think when somebody deserves praise, that praise should be given. And President Trump deserves all the praise, because without his leadership, without him being re-elected president of the United States, the 2% this year and the 5% in 2035 — we would never, ever, ever have been able to achieve agreement on this,” said Rutte.

Trump is convinced that the rules of geopolitics (and economics) must change after decades during which, in his view, allies have taken advantage of Washington.

Earlier, in the morning in Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with the U.S. envoy to the Trump administration’s region, Keith Kellogg. After the meeting, Zelenskiy’s office released a statement saying the conversation focused on the possibility of a ceasefire and the delivery of weapons Zelenskiy has been requesting in recent weeks, amid intensified Russian airstrikes. The latest attack, just last night, left four dead in Sumy, a city in the northern part of the invaded country.

“The parties also discussed joint drone production, the possibility of direct purchases of Ukrainian UAVs by the United States, and the potential for arms procurement in cooperation with European partners,” the statement clarified, adding that the meeting “overall frontline situation and the needs of Ukrainian warriors.”

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