Donald Trump will be able to advance with new sanctions against Russia in the coming days, at a time when he unloads his frustration against Russian President Vladimir Putin by Ukraine air strike over the weekend, according to people familiar with the matter.
In recent weeks, options have been made to apply new Moscow punishment measures, but so far Trump has not approved them. The president said on Sunday that he would “absolutely” consider new sanctions on the aftermath of a sustained bombing of missiles and drones that left many dead.
“He’s killing a lot of people,” Trump said about Putin on Sunday. “I don’t know what’s going on with him. What lightning happened to you?”
Trump may still decide not to apply the new sanctions, seconds the same sources, according to previous examples of retreating the threats of reaching Russia because of his actions in Ukraine. Trump has advanced that he is concerned that new sanctions may rule out Russia from peace negotiations.
Democratic and Republican deputies are pressuring Trump to significantly increase US sanctions after weekend attacks.
“All of us, through our public statements and our private contacts, are very strong pressure,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told CNN on Monday.
Blumenthal is a key figure behind a Senate interpartary bill, also sponsored by Trump’s ally Senator Lindsey Graham, which aims to impose new “disabling” measures on Moscow. It would include “secondary sanctions,” such as massive 500% tariffs on the countries that buy Russian energy. To date, more than 80 senators have subscribed to the Bipartisan bill.
After talking to Putin last week, Trump told European leaders during a telephone call, which would not join them, for now, in the application of new measures against Moscow, although he had previously expressed his desire to adopt a harder approach to Putin, a European employee said.
Trump “believes that, at this moment, if he begins to threaten with sanctions, the Russians will stop talking, and there is value that we can talk to them and take them to sit at the table,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio to the deputies of the Senate Foreign Commission last week, a day after Trump and Putin spoke on the phone. “As we will see, they have to do this, no one is saying that this is a guarantee.”
After Trump’s latest comments, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed hope that the US leader will change direction.
“President Trump understands that when President Putin said on the phone he was ready for peace, or told his envoys that he was ready for peace, he lied,” Macron said on Monday. “We have seen once again in the last few hours Donald Trump expresses his anger. A form of impatience. I simply hope this translates into action.”
Trump had already raised new sanctions against the Russian banking sector and secondary sanctions against Russian energy product buyers. Both options were elaborated, but it was unclear that specific measures Trump was considering Russia’s bombing in Ukraine over the weekend.
*Matthew Chance contributed to this article
