This week’s breakthrough on an economic cooperation agreement with Ukraine is unlikely to ease russian leader vladimir putin’s resistance to President Donald Trump’s peace plan, and the White House is still unsure how to change that.
This is reported by Politico.
Thus, according to two people familiar with the negotiations, despite the administration’s announcement of the agreement as a major event, the White House is still not in agreement on what to do next.
That could involve tough choices, including direct pressure on the Kremlin, which Trump is in no hurry to do.
“More sanctions would be the next turn of the screw. If the President wants to go down that path,” one of the sources told the publication.
Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposal to impose new sanctions on russia and 500 percent tariffs on countries that buy russian oil, gas and aluminum has received broad bipartisan support in the Senate, possibly even a veto-free majority.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Thursday that he had discussed the “laudable” proposal with Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a meeting and expressed his desire for European allies to coordinate with the United States on the new sanctions.
Another question is whether an additional sanctions regime will be enough to pressure putin.
In response to the intensification of russian bombing in recent days, Trump has been musing aloud on social media about whether he needs to toughen his approach to putin. He has not yet taken a position on the Republican proposal to tighten sanctions on Moscow.
Citing the U.S. president’s Oval Office quarrel with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on February 28, when Trump told Zelenskyy that he had “no trump cards” in peace talks, Bessent argues that this is no longer the case.
“President Trump has dealt him a royal flush, because now we can take these cards and go and show the russian leadership that there is no difference between the Ukrainian people and the American people, between our goals,” Bessent said.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said that the subsoil deal would show the russian leadership that there is “no difference” between the goals of the United States and Ukraine, and also allow U.S. President Donald Trump to negotiate on a stronger footing.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said that the economic cooperation agreement between Ukraine and the United States, signed on April 30, is an important step towards ending the full-scale war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance said that there is a very large gap between what the russians want in peace talks and what the Ukrainians want.
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