President Trump is ramping up the pressure on Russia

President Trump threatened on Monday to increase the economic pressure on Russia if there is no peace deal with Ukraine within 50 days. This illustrates a newfound anger that Mr Trump has towards Russian President Vladimir Putin.

If there is no peace deal between Russia and Ukraine within the next 50 days, the US will impose 100% tariffs on any country that does business with Russia. “We’re very, very unhappy with them, and we’re going to be doing very severe tariffs, if you don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100%, they call them secondary tariffs,” Trump said from the White House while meeting with NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte.

The President said that he is “disappointed” with Putin, because he thought they would have had a deal months ago. If a ceasefire deal is not reached by September, said Trump, “we’re going to be doing secondary tariffs.”

Trump also announced Monday that the United States would send “billions of dollars worth of military equipment” purchased from American companies, paid for by European countries and delivered to NATO allies to be sent on to Ukraine.

Trump’s announcement — coupled with the secondary tariff threat against Russia — marks a shift in the President’s support for Ukraine, and underscores his growing frustration with the Russian leader.

Trump’s secondary tariffs would impose levies on the countries and entities that buy Russia’s exports. They could take an especially heavy toll on countries that rely on Russian fossil fuels as part of their energy plan, like China, India, Brazil and Turkey.

How much of an impact these tariffs would have on Russia remains to be seen, as does whether Russia agrees to a peace deal in time. But it is clear that Mr Trump is souring on Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin.