It’s official: President Trump is tired of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody shenanigans. While he won’t admit it, it’s likely Trump feels strung along and publicly humiliated. Every time he ends a conversation with Putin that he’s relatively pleased with, he learns a few hours later that another batch of Russian drones and missiles have slammed into Kyiv and killed more civilians.
Today’s meeting at the White House with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, during which Trump said yet again that he was ‘very unhappy’ with Russia over the war in Ukraine, came after weeks in which the U.S. president was increasingly expressing his frustration, even anger, with how Putin was behaving. The President didn’t mince any words during his comments to reporters, threatening 100 per cent secondary tariffs on Russia if Putin doesn’t sign a peace deal in the next 50 days that would end the 40-month long conflict. All types of U.S.-manufactured missiles, including the Patriot systems and interceptors that were already in short supply, will now be transmitted to the Ukrainian army. This last item is particularly notable given the fact that the Pentagon paused weapons shipments earlier in the month as part of a department-wide review of U.S. munitions stockpiles.
With these latest changes, Trump’s Ukraine policy is moving closer to Joe Biden’s, an ironic development when one considers how many times Trump-the-candidate bashed Biden’s stewardship of the war during the 2024 presidential campaign. Apparently Trump-the-president has come to an altogether different conclusion than his previous self: the only way this war will end in a deal is by throwing more pressure, not less, at the Russians. The carrots Trump dangled in front of Putin’s face are now being replaced with pointy sticks—not to mention icier language. ‘My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,’ Trump said, referencing his conversations with Putin so far. ‘He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden—he didn’t fool me.’
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