President Donald Trump is giving Russian President Vladimir Putin an ultimatum: End the war in Ukraine in 50 days, or face “100% tariffs.”
Trump made clear Monday he is losing patience with Russia and is letting Europe buy more American weapons to support Ukraine.
“We are very unhappy, I am, with Russia,” Trump said. “We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days.” A White House official clarified to reporters that the president was threatening tariffs on Russia, as well as “secondary” tariffs on other countries that buy oil from Russia.
After a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump announced that the United States would send Ukraine weapons that would be paid for by Ukraine and the European Union. The “billions of dollars of military equipment” will flow through NATO and include “military equipment both for air defense, missiles” and other material, Trump said.
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“I’ve been hearing so much talk,” Trump said of Russia’s entreaties toward peace. “It’s all talk and then missiles go into Kiev.”
This comes just two weeks after the Pentagon said that military aid to Ukraine was “under review,” temporarily pausing some shipments — a move that reportedly caught the White House by surprise. The White House contradicted the Pentagon immediately, saying no weapons were ever put on pause. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was at the Oval Office Monday alongside Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Rutte.
“We want to see it end,” Trump said. “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.”
Rutte met with Hegseth last month in Brussels, Belgium, during the NATO Defense Ministerial. The two publicly discussed the need for continued engagement with Putin, with Rutte saying it was “breaking the deadlock” over peace negotiations.
“Mr. President, dear Donald, this is really big,” Rutte said Monday. “This is again, Europeans stepping up.”
On Sunday, Trump said the Russian leader’s approach is just that “he talks nice but then he bombs everybody in the evening.” The U.S. will send “various pieces of very sophisticated military” equipment — including some of the coveted Patriot missile systems — and Ukraine and the European Union would pay “100%” of the cost, Trump said.
Rutte said this would only be the first wave of continued support through NATO to provide weapons packages to Ukraine. The U.S. military stockpiles won’t be used in support, Rutte told reporters.
Congress recently crafted legislation that would support larger sanctions against Russia, but Republicans in the Senate have said that they’ll wait for the direction from Trump before attempting to move it forward. Trump said he’ll be talking with Senate Majority Leader John Thune about the “secondary tariffs” and any possible need for that legislation to move forward later in the day on Monday.
Trump said that both he and Rutte thought “at least four times” that they were at the point of a peace deal before getting scuttled by Moscow.
“If I was Vladimir Putin today, and hear you speaking about what you’re planning to do in 50 days,” Rutte said, “I would reconsider if I should not take negotiations about Ukraine more seriously than I was doing at the moment.”
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