Trump said he'd end Ukraine war in 24 hours. Now his patience with Putin is wearing thin.
President Donald Trump said he would end the war in Ukraine within his first 24 hours in office.
But now, more than 4,000 hours in, Trump's patience with Vladimir Putin, whom the U.S. president only last month called "very kind," appears to be wearing thin. Relations have hit a wall as Russia's leader has pushed forward with intensifying drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities while appearing to repeatedly rebuff Trump's attempts to broker a ceasefire.
"We get a lot of b**shit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," Trump told reporters on July 9, summing up what Ukrainians and other seasoned Russia watchers have been saying for two decades. "He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."
Here's how the Trump-Putin geopolitical love affair turned sour.
Trump and Putin got off to a good start
Trump initiated direct talks with Putin shortly after taking office, saying − much to Putin's delight − that he was effectively ready to let Russia keep the Ukrainian territory it had already taken when Moscow invaded Kyiv in February 2022. Trump also said that Ukraine's Crimea region, which Putin seized in 2014, "will stay with Russia." At the same time, Trump said he was not interested in spending more on Ukraine's defense, an issue that exploded out into the open when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House in February.
"You don't have the cards right now," Trump told Zelensky in remarks that were carried live on TV and appeared to belittle Ukraine's leader. Trump said Putin had been the victim of a "phony" American "witch hunt." He said Ukraine would need to make concessions and started pressing Kyiv to sign an agreement over its mineral wealth.
'My favorite president': Donald Trump and the art of world leader bromances
Putin escalates Ukraine attacks
American intelligence agencies and officials have for years struggled to understand Putin's precise foreign policy goals. In Ukraine, their best guess is he wants to weaken it as much as possible as part of an effort to keep it out of the NATO military alliance and retain or restore Russia's cultural and economic sphere of influence around its borders. That means grabbing Ukraine's land and wearing down the morale of its people and communities through wave after wave of drone and missile attacks that have killed thousands of civilians, according to the United Nations.
War crimes in Ukraine: Kyiv's push for swift justice
What Putin has made clear, at least in the timeframe that he's renewed talks with the White House, is that he's still intent on pounding Ukraine to deadly effect. In fact, according to an analysis by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, Russia's drone and missile strikes on Ukraine have increased following Trump's January inauguration. It has appeared to take Trump some time to publicly acknowledge this. But he did eventually, saying in April, "I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP!"
One Ukrainian who lives in Kyiv said in a WhatsApp message that he, his wife and kids are "going completely mad" with having to repeatedly run to bomb shelters, metro stations and underground parking garages to seek shelter at a rate they have not had to do since the start of the 3.5-year-old war.
An evolving policy to meet an evolving relationship
Trump has spent years praising and appearing to carefully avoid criticizing Putin. The origins of this admiration are not well understood. Both men say they first met face-to-face on the sidelines of a 2017 international summit in Germany during Trump's first term. But Trump has also gone on the record saying that he met Putin for the first time in 2013 on a visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant. Whatever the case, five months ago, Trump said that he knows Putin "very well" and believes he "wants peace" in Ukraine.
Still, two rounds of Trump-brokered, indirect ceasefire talks between Ukraine and Russia have come to nothing. And after multiple phone calls with Putin since taking office, Trump now appears to be shifting his thinking − and actions − on Putin and Russia. After a brief pause, he's ordered the Pentagon to restart shipping weapons to Ukraine. The White House is ramping up pressure on European countries to pitch in more to support the air defense supplies that Ukraine most needs. Some countries have complied in recent days.
Momentum is building for bipartisan legislation that would impose severe sanctions on Russia − amounting to a 500% tariff − on any country that buys, sells or supplies Russian oil, gas and petroleum if Russia refuses to negotiate a peace agreement with Ukraine. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said that the bill could be ready for a vote as soon as this month.
'We need a Russia sanctions bill that puts some real constraints on the ability of the president to play on again, off again, with Vladimir Putin,' Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said in an interview.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on July 10 in Malaysia that Moscow had presented a "new concept" that could open the door to peace during a meeting he had with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Rubio said they shared some ideas and information that he would take back to Trump. Trump, for his part, has teased a "major" statement on Russia early next week.
Is the bromance finally over? Did it ever really start?
Putin is a former KGB officer who has long trafficked in misinformation, disinformation, propaganda and outright lies. Trump often makes false or misleading claims in his speeches and social media posts.
'Trump," former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Bill Taylor said in a media appearance this week, "has now figured it out that Putin is the problem."
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Fox News
24 minutes ago
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Mother of slain soldier held by Hamas terrorists for 4K days makes plea to Trump
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Yahoo
25 minutes ago
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US Apparel Imports From China Fell to a 22-Year Low in May Amid Trade War Escalation
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More from Sourcing Journal Trump Announces 30% Duties on EU, Mexico Trump Hits Canada With 35% Tariffs Too Much Space, Too Little Demand: China-US Freight Rates Keep Crashing The May trade insights, compiled by University of Delaware professor of fashion and apparel studies Dr. Sheng Lu using U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) data, revealed that tariff rates on fashion products (especially steep duties on China-originating goods) ballooned beyond levels seen in the modern era. As a result of the Trump administration's reciprocal tariff regime, the average tariff rate for U.S. apparel imports grew to 23.8 percent in May, up several points from the already record-setting 20.8 percent seen in April (and substantially higher than the 13.9-percent average rate in May 2024, and even the 14.7-percent rate of January 2025, before the president's second term began). 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The Hill
29 minutes ago
- The Hill
US manufacturers are stuck in a rut despite subsidies from Biden and protection from Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much, but they share a conviction that the government should help American manufacturers, one way or another. Democratic President Joe Biden handed out subsidies to chipmakers and electric vehicle manufacturers. Republican President Donald Trump is building a wall of import taxes — tariffs — around the U.S. economy to protect domestic industry from foreign competition. Yet American manufacturing has been stuck in a rut for nearly three years. And it remains to be seen whether the trend will reverse itself. The U.S. Labor Department reports that American factories shed 7,000 jobs in June for the second month in a row. Manufacturing employment is on track to drop for the third straight year. The Institute for Supply Management, an association of purchasing managers, reported that manufacturing activity in the United States shrank in June for the fourth straight month. In fact, U.S. factories have been in decline for 30 of the 32 months since October 2022, according to ISM. 'The past three years have been a real slog for manufacturing,'' said Eric Hagopian, CEO of Pilot Precision Products, a maker of industrial cutting tools in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. 'We didn't get destroyed like we did in the recession of 2008. But we've been in this stagnant, sort of stationary environment.'' Big economic factors contributed to the slowdown: A surge in inflation, arising from the unexpectedly strong economic recovery from COVID-19, raised factory expenses and prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates 11 times in 2022 and 2023. The higher borrowing costs added to the strain. Government policy was meant to help. 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He slapped 50% taxes on steel and aluminum, 25% on autos and auto parts, 10% on many other imports. In some ways, Trump's tariffs can give U.S. factories an edge. Chris Zuzick, vice president at Waukesha Metal Products, said the Sussex, Wisconsin-based manufacturer is facing stiff competition for a big contract in Texas. A foreign company offers much lower prices. But 'when you throw the tariff on, it gets us closer,'' Zuzick said. 'So that's definitely a situation where it's beneficial.'' But American factories import and use foreign products, too – machinery, chemicals, raw materials like steel and aluminum. Taxing those inputs can drive up costs and make U.S producers less competitive in world markets. Consider steel. Trump's tariffs don't just make imported steel more expensive. By putting the foreign competition at a disadvantage, the tariffs allow U.S. steelmakers to raise prices – and they have. U.S.-made steel was priced at $960 per metric ton as of June 23, more than double the world export price of $440 per ton, according to industry monitor SteelBenchmarker. In fact, U.S. steel prices are so high that Pilot Precision Products has continued to buy the steel it needs from suppliers in Austria and France — and pay Trump's tariff. Trump has also created considerable uncertainty by repeatedly tweaking and rescheduling his tariffs. Just before new import taxes were set to take effect on dozens of countries on July 9, for example, the president pushed the deadline back to Aug. 1 to allow more time for negotiation with U.S. trading partners. The flipflops have left factories, suppliers and customers bewildered about where things stand. Manufacturers voiced their complaints in the ISM survey: 'Customers do not want to make commitments in the wake of massive tariff uncertainty,'' a fabricated metal products company said. 'Tariffs continue to cause confusion and uncertainty for long-term procurement decisions,'' added a computer and electronics firm. 'The situation remains too volatile to firmly put such plans into place.'' Some may argue that things aren't necessarily bad for U.S. manufacturing; they've just returned to normal after a pandemic-related bust and boom. Factories slashed nearly 1.4 million jobs in March and April 2020 when COVID-19 forced many businesses to shut down and Americans to stay home. Then a funny thing happened: American consumers, cooped up and flush with COVID relief checks from the government, went on a spending spree, snapping up manufactured goods like air fryers, patio furniture and exercise machines. Suddenly, factories were scrambling to keep up. They brought back the workers they laid off – and then some. Factories added 379,000 jobs in 2021 — the most since 1994 — and then tacked on another 357,000 in 2022. But in 2023, factory hiring stopped growing and began backtracking as the economy returned to something closer to the pre-pandemic normal. In the end, it was a wash. Factory payrolls last month came to 12.75 million, almost exactly where they stood in February 2020 (12.74 million) just before COVID slammed the economy. 'It's a long, strange trip to get back to where we started,'' said Jared Bernstein, chair of Biden's White House Council of Economic Advisers. Zuzick at Waukesha Metal Products said that it will take time to see if Trump's tariffs succeed in bringing factories back to America. 'The fact is that manufacturing doesn't turn on a dime,'' he said. 'It takes time to switch gears.'' Hagopian at Pilot Precision is hopeful that tax breaks in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill will help American manufacturing regain momentum. 'There may be light at the end of the tunnel that may not be a locomotive bearing down,'' he said. For now, manufacturers are likely to delay big decisions on investing or bringing on new workers until they see where Trump's tariffs settle and what impact they have on the economy, said Ned Hill, professor emeritus in economic development at Ohio State University. 'With all this uncertainty about what the rest of the year is going to look like,'' he said, 'there's a hesitancy to hire people just to lay them off in the near future.'' 'Everyone,' said Zuzick at Waukesha Metal Products, 'is kind of just waiting for the new normal.''
