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US President Donald Trump threatened Russia with further sanctions unless Moscow moves quickly to negotiate an end to its war in Ukraine.
“If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no 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,” Trump wrote in a social media post Wednesday.
Russia’s trade with the US has fallen to lows comparable to the end of the Cold War, but US allies in Europe have so far purchased record levels of Russian gas in 2025.
The Trump team is considering ways to dial up US sanctions on Russia, Bloomberg reported; options include harder enforcement of secondary sanctions, new penalties on Russia’s European facilitators and Asian energy customers, and intervening on tankers moving Russian oil.
“I will be 100% on-board for taking sanctions up, especially on the oil majors,” Scott Bessent, the nominee for Treasury Secretary, said in his Senate confirmation hearing, adding that the Biden administration had been too concerned about raising US energy prices.
“There is still a lot of room to escalate sanctions,” a former State Department official said on X. “Some low-hanging fruit: blocking sanctions on Rosneft + Gazprom.”
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Trump is also putting pressure on European allies in NATO to spend more on defense, pushing for an increase in national spending targets from 2% to 5% of GDP. The US currently pours about 3.5% of its GDP into defense, although some Republicans advocate for a spending surge.
Trump’s call is being heeded by key figures in Eastern Europe: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the US president was right that Europe needs to significantly boost its defense spending. “Only an ally can wish another ally to get stronger. This is not what an opponent of Europe would say,” Tusk said.
Lithuania pledged last week to spend at least 5% of its GDP on defense from 2026 onwards, making it the first country to commit to Trump’s demands.