Trump: Russia Has 10 Days to Reach a Ceasefire with Ukraine

President Trump finally seems to be tiring of President Putin’s unwillingness to wrap up his “special military operation” in Ukraine. Today he announced he would give Putin 10 days to show some progress or face a bunch of new sanctions.

The president, who said in Scotland on Monday that he was shortening his original 50-day deadline for Russia to make peace with Ukraine, spoke to reporters about the revised deadline Tuesday aboard Air Force One as he returned to the U.S. Mr. Trump has been in Scotland for the last five days to negotiate trade deals with European leaders and visit his two golf resorts there. 

“Ten days from today. Okay?” he said on the plane. 

“And then you know, we’re going to put on tariffs and stuff, and I don’t know if it’s going to affect Russia, because he wants to obviously probably keep the war going,” the president added, seemingly speaking about Russian President Vladimir Putin. “But we’re going to put on tariffs and the various things that you put on. It may or may not affect them, but it could.”

That means Putin has until next Friday, August 8 to make a change. But as of today there’s no sign he’s interested in that. Strikes last night killed a couple dozen civilians.

Glide bombs and ballistic missiles struck a Ukrainian prison and a medical facility overnight as Russia’s relentless strikes on civilian areas killed at least 27 people across the country, officials said Tuesday, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to soon punish Russia with sanctions and tariffs unless it stops.

Trump has repeatedly rebuked Putin for talking about ending the war but continuing to bombard Ukrainian civilians. But the Kremlin hasn’t changed its tactics.

“I’m disappointed in President Putin,” Trump said during a visit to Scotland.

The direct response to Trump’s ultimatum was a warning that it could lead to war with the United States.

The Kremlin pushed back, with a top Putin lieutenant warning Trump against “playing the ultimatum game with Russia.”

“Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran,” former president Dmitry Medvedev, who is deputy head of the country’s Security Council, wrote on social platform X.

“Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country,” Medvedev said.

So it seems likely that Russia is going to blow past this next deadline and dare President Trump to do something about it. And what are the sanctions Trump is threatening?

At this point the US isn’t buying much of anything from Russia because we’ve had sanctions in place since the Biden administration which the Trump administration has extended. What Trump is talking about now are secondary sanctions aimed at countries that continue to buy oil from Russia. So, for instance, if India continues to buy Russia oil, Trump might announce new 100% tariffs on Indian products, effectively putting India in the position of having to make a choice: Buy from us or buy from them but not both.

The sanctions would slap 100% tariffs on buyers of Russian oil, with the biggest customers being India and China.

This move has the potential to disrupt global oil supplies, given that Russia exported 4.68 million barrels per day of crude oil in June, around 4.5% of global demand, as well as 2.5 million bpd of refined products, according to the International Energy Agency.

There are two potential downsides (at least) to this plan. First, oil prices will go up which means Russia doesn’t have to sell as much oil to keep themselves afloat financially. The hope is that the loss of revenue from countries like Germany and India could be made up by more black market sales from China. And because the price is higher, they won’t need to sell as much oil overall.

Second, higher oil prices mean higher gas prices and figure into the cost of transporting anything. That could create more inflationary pressure in the US which would undermine President Trump’s continued push to get the FED to cut interest rates.

The potential upside is that the sanctions could still do enough damage to Russia’s economy that Putin has second thoughts about continuing the war for another year. President Trump really does want lower interest rates but he also would like to see this war end and further burnish his credentials as a peacemaker and possible future Nobel Peace Prize winner. At the moment, it looks like Putin isn’t going to make it easy on President Trump to achieve both things.