Donald Trump threatened Vladimir Putin with sanctions and hiking tariffs if Mad Vlad does not manage to do a deal over Ukraine. ‘IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE,’ Trump raved
Donald Trump has threatened Russia as tensions between the two countries over Ukraine continue. Taking to his social media platform Truth Social, Trump indicated a lack of a deal over Ukraine would come with consequences for Mad Vlad and his band of Kremlinite cronies.
“Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE,” Trump ranted. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”
It is not clear how Putin’s Russia would react to hiked tariffs, but there is concern it would ramp up tensions between the world’s most nuke-laden nations.
Trump then claimed the war would never had started if he was president and said it can end the “easy way, or the hard way – and the easy way is always better”.
The White House incumbent has repeatedly made threats of high tariffs against countries including allies like Canada and Mexico. He said Putin’s economy, with troubles including high inflation, is “failing”.
Trump pledged in his inaugural address that tariffs would be coming and said foreign countries would be paying the trade penalties, even though those taxes are currently paid by domestic importers and often passed along to consumers.
Also in the Truth Social post, Trump signalled he wants to build on a “good relationship” with Putin to do a deal over the war in Ukraine, which is coming up to its fourth year in February.
He had previously said that Putin would be destroying Russia by failing to make a deal.
Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov has said the Kremlin is waiting for “concrete proposals that could form the basis for contacts”.
On Monday, Putin praised Trump’s openness to dialogue as he spoke to Russia’s Security Council shortly before the inauguration.
“We hear the statements from Trump and members of his team about their desire to restore direct contact with Russia, which were halted through no fault of ours by the outgoing administration,” Putin had said.
“We also hear his statements about the need to do everything to prevent World War III. We certainly welcome such an approach and congratulate the US president-elect on taking office.”
Trump also told reporters on Monday after taking office that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had told him he wanted to make a peace deal.
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