Trump vows to impose 100 per cent
During his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the White House on Monday (local time), Trump expressed disappointment with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin and threatened to impose severe tariffs if there is no deal within 50 days.
He said, 'We are very unhappy, I am with Russia. But, we will discuss that maybe a different day. But, we're very, very unhappy with them, and 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. You know what that means. But today, we're going to talk about something else. And as you know, we've spent USD 350 billion, approximately, on this war with Russia and Ukraine and would like to see it end. It wasn't my war. It was Biden's war. It's not my war.'
'I'm trying to get you out of it. And we want to see it end and I'm disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn't seem to get there. So, based on that, we're going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days. It's very simple and they'll be at 100 per cent and that's the way it is. It can be more simple. It's just the way it is. I hope we don't have to do it. But regardless, we are going to be, we make the greatest military equipment in the world, whether it's missiles,' he added.
Trump also unveiled a deal under which NATO will buy arms from the US and then distribute them to Ukraine amid the ongoing war with Russia.
He said, 'The only one we haven't been able to get to yet is Russia, and I'm not happy. And I will tell you that Ukraine wants to do something again. It's a war that should have never started. If I were president, it never would have happened. I used to speak to President Putin about it a lot. It was the apple of his eye. But once I saw what was going on, I said, they're going to they're going to have a war here. I was outside. Lecture was rigged and I was outside looking in and I said, you know, that thing's going to be a war. Couldn't believe it because what Biden said was the exact opposite of what should have been said and it started and it's a real mess. We're losing I guess they're losing five or six thousand people a day. It's actually now more.'
'I used to was saying 5,000 a day. It's actually more now, mostly soldiers but a lot of people in cities and towns that are getting blown up to it's a horrible war and it should be stopped. And so if it's not done, if we don't have an agreement in 50 days, that's what we're doing secondary tariffs and they're biting and I hope we don't get to the point where we do, but I I've been hearing so much talk. It's all talk. It's all talk and then missiles go into Kyiv and kill 60 people. It's got to stop. But, the purpose of this is to say that this is a very big deal we've made. This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment is going to be purchased from the United States going to NATO etc. And that's going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield, Ukraine will take it up,' he added.
Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he echoed US President Trump's 'disappointment and frustration' at the lack of progress in peace talks during his meeting with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and expressed America's willingness to engage.
Speaking to reporters in Kuala Lumpur on July 10 after his meeting with Lavrov, Rubio stated that the US' strategy is to continue engaging all parties involved in finding an outcome to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Rubio described his talks with Lavrov as 'frank and important.'
When asked about his message to Lavrov during the meeting, he said, 'Our strategy is to continue to engage all the parties that are involved in finding an outcome to this conflict. We will engage anytime that we have an opportunity to do so, like we did today. I echoed what the President said - both the disappointment and frustration at the lack of progress in peace talks or in a path forward. So, we'll continue to engage.'
'We shared some ideas and comments, which I'll take back to Washington as early as this evening in terms of calls and reflected, and perhaps there's something to build on there. But, it was a frank conversation. It was an important one. We had it, and we talked about some other items as well unrelated to the war in Ukraine, but that was the - obviously, the first and foremost topic that we discussed. And look, the President's been pretty clear. He's disappointed and frustrated that there's not been more flexibility on the Russian side to bring about an end to this conflict. We hope that can change, and we're going to continue to stay involved where we see opportunities to make a difference,' he added.
Marco Rubio met Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur. The meeting between Rubio and Lavrov came just days after Trump expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin for not engaging in peace talks regarding the Ukraine conflict. (ANI)
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