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Donald Trump has threatened Russia with 100 per cent “secondary tariffs” if the war in Ukraine does not end soon, as he announced an agreement with Nato allies to send more weapons to Kyiv.
During a meeting in the Oval Office with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte on Monday, the US president said he was “very unhappy” with Moscow over the lack of progress towards a deal to end the conflict.
“We are very unhappy — I am — with Russia,” Trump said. “I’m disappointed in President [Vladimir] Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago.”
“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100 per cent, you’d call them secondary tariffs,” he added. The tariffs would be “biting” and “very, very powerful”.
Trump has previously raised the prospect of applying so-called “secondary tariffs”, which would hit countries that trade with Moscow, as he has grown increasingly frustrated with Putin’s intransigence in peace talks.
“We’ve been very successful in settling wars” with trade, Trump claimed, citing conflicts between India and Pakistan, and Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
During Monday’s White House meeting, Trump also confirmed plans to send weapons to Ukraine, including Patriot missile systems.
The president said “billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment” would be purchased by Nato allies from the US, and that it would “be quickly distributed to the battlefield” in Ukraine.
Rutte said Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada all hoped to be part of the weapons deal.
“I spoke with Germany, spoke with most of the larger [Nato] countries, and they are really enthusiastic about this,” Trump said.
The weapons deal included “everything”, Trump said. “It’s Patriots. It’s all of them. It’s a full complement with the batteries.”
The president suggested that some Patriots would come from Norway, and said one country had 17 Patriot systems “getting ready to be shipped”, which could be given to Kyiv “very quickly”.
Rutte said this would be “only the first wave” of weapons to Ukraine, adding that more would follow.
Patriot interceptor missiles are crucial for Ukraine’s defences against Russian air attacks. The US-made system is the only one in Kyiv’s arsenal capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles. Rutte stressed that the Ukraine weapons deal would take into account the US’s own stockpile.
Moscow has in recent weeks intensified its aerial bombardments of Ukrainian cities. Hundreds of Iranian-designed suicide drones have been aimed at civilian and military infrastructure alongside cruise and ballistic missiles.
Ukraine’s air defences have been in short supply, forcing its military to make difficult decisions about which incoming weapons to shoot down. While Kyiv’s interception rate is high — often about 70 per cent — dozens of drones and several missiles get past its air defences in each attack.
According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years were recorded in June, with 232 people killed and 1,343 injured.
