Donald Trump made another move in his feckless game of global checkers today in Scotland, with the announcement that he is giving Russia a new, much shorter deadline—10 to 12 days from now—to end the war in Ukraine. Trump warned that if President Vladimir Putin does not reach a deal by around August 7–9, the US will impose new sanctions and “severe tariffs” on Russia and countries supporting its war effort. Trump’s new deadline elicited a collective yawn in Moscow.
Trump’s threat of new sanctions is just a blowhard bloviating… Ending shipments of fertilizers and precious metals is not going to hurt the Russian economy one bit. Thanks to the sanctions Biden levied in 2022, Russia’s economy grew to be the fourth largest in the world as measured by purchasing power parity. Western propaganda that the Russian economy is failing–citing current growth of 1.4%–ignores the fiscal policies that the Russian central bank put in place in 2024 to cool inflation. But those measures were only temporary, with the central bank announcing a two percent cut in interest rates late last week.
That means that Trump, if he is serious, will impose bone-crunching tariffs on China and India. Both countries appear unfazed by Trump’s bullying bluster. China in particular holds some very strong cards… Rare-earth minerals desperately needed by the US military industrial complex. I think this will be another Trump nothing-burger.
It’s obvious that more sanctions aren’t going to hurt Russia. Which raises the obvious question? Why the reduction of 38 days from the original deadline? Whatever the reason, it doesn’t smack of confidence, to the contrary, it reeks of desperation.
And when Putin ignores the deadline, what then? Threaten another one?