Washington, DC: US President Donald Trump has said he is ready to move ahead with the next stage of sanctions against Russia. The announcement came on Sunday as questions mounted over the war in Ukraine and his administration’s approach to Moscow.
Asked if he planned to slap the second phase of penalties targeting Russia and President Vladimir Putin, Trump replied, “Yes, I am….”
The admission followed a rare moment of self-reflection on Friday. Trump conceded he had failed to deliver one of the campaign pledges that helped secure his second term in office.
He described his inability to halt the conflict in Ukraine as “probably the most difficult” challenge of his presidency.
The comments were made at a dinner with members of the Congress in the Rose Garden, recently reopened after renovations. Speaking to lawmakers, he reminded his audience of what he saw as a record of global successes.
“Nobody has done what we did in seven months. We stopped seven wars,” he said and then added that the Russia-Ukraine war, which he once believed would be simple to resolve due to his personal rapport with Putin, had turned out to be the hardest.
“I thought it would be easiest because of the relation with President Putin… It did not matter. It ended up being probably the most difficult,” he said.
Trump’s campaign had leaned heavily on the promise that he could end the war within 24 hours of taking office. More than two years into his term, no such breakthrough has materialised.
His most recent push came during the Alaska summit in August, a meeting he branded “very productive”. But the summit closed without a formal deal.
At the same time, Trump has kept up a steady stream of remarks on social media about the shifting balance of power. He recently posted that the United States had “lost Russia and India to deepest, darkest China”. Hours later, he sought to calm speculation by calling the India-US bond a “very special relationship”.
In a brief exchange with ANI, Trump stressed his personal ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “I always will. I will always be friends with (PM) Modi. He is a great prime minister. I will always be friends, but I just do not like what he is doing at this particular moment. But India and the United States have a very special relationship. There is nothing to worry about. We just have moments on occasion,” he said.
The president has also sharpened his rhetoric toward China, accusing President Xi Jinping of “conspiring against” America alongside North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
As the conflict in Ukraine drags on, Trump faces pressure at home to show results. His talk of sanctions marks the latest signal that Washington is preparing to raise the cost for Moscow, even as old promises of a swift peace remain unfulfilled.