Trump Downplays Importance of Ceasefire
Less than two weeks ago, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to impose an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods because that country is importing Russian oil, and Russia's actions in Ukraine are "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States." He said that if Russia were to "take significant steps to address the national emergency described in section 1 of this order and align sufficiently with the United States on national security, foreign policy, and economic matters, I may further modify this order."
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Trump and members of his Cabinet said that secondary tariffs might convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop bombing Ukraine. However, after meeting with Putin last week, Trump has backed away from insisting on a ceasefire -- and he made no mention of economic tools to pressure Russia on Aug. 18, as he talked to European leaders at the White House, including Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
A reporter asked, "Last week, you warned of severe consequences if a 30-day ceasefire were not agreed to by Russia. Are there going to be severe consequences?"
Trump replied, "I don't think you need a ceasefire. I know that it might be good to have, but I also understand why one country or the other wouldn't want it. I like the concept of a ceasefire for one reason, because you'd stop killing people immediately, as opposed to in two weeks, or one week, or whatever it takes."
Later, with the leaders of Finland, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the EU, Trump said, "All of us would obviously prefer an immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace, and maybe something like that could happen, as of this moment, it's not happening. President Zelenskyy and President Putin can talk a little bit more about that .... I don't know that it's necessary."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that pressuring Russia is needed to make peacemaking efforts credible. "I can’t imagine the next [trilateral] meeting would take place without a ceasefire, so let's work on that, and let's try to put pressure on Russia. Because the credibility of these efforts we are undertaking today are depending on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of serious negotiations."
Trump responded, "We'll see how that works out. If we can do the ceasefire, great, but if we don't do the ceasefire, there were many, many other important points made."
A webinar that discussed the diplomacy to end the war on Aug. 18 suggested that sanctions on banks and secondary sanctions on Russian oil exports could be effective.
Andrea Kendall-Taylor, director of the Transatlantic Security Program, at the Center for a New American Security, said, "I think Trump underestimates the amount of leverage that the United States, along with Europe, have, and we haven't fully explored the range of costs that the U.S. and Europe together can apply on Russia. So that's really where I think things need to go if the United States, if Trump, is really serious about bringing an end to this, it's going to have to be by raising the costs to convince Putin that he can't continue this war indefinitely."
She said that Putin doesn't believe Trump wants to apply pressure, and that both the U.S. and Europe would have to impose tariffs on Chinese and Indian products to change his mind.
"I think that he, Putin, judges that the United States won't be willing to jeopardize, say, relations with India and with China, for example, over Ukraine, recognizing that Ukraine is not priority number one for Trump. And so that's the calculus, I think, that Putin has made. But if we're going to be serious and really get Putin to negotiate from a place that's more genuine, I think that that's what the United States, along with Europe, will have to do."
French President Emmanuel Macron also tried to tie the trilateral meeting between Zelenskyy, Trump and Putin to a ceasefire. "In order to organize such a trilateral meeting, your idea to ask for a truce, at least to stop the killings ... is a necessity. And we all support this idea," he said.
Trump did not acknowledge he had been pushing for a ceasefire recently. He said, "In a certain period of time, a week or two weeks, we're going to know whether or not we're going to solve this, or if this horrible fighting is going to continue. It's possible it might not be able to be done."
But he also repeatedly said he believes Putin wants peace.