CNN
—
President Donald Trump on Monday laid out a pair of steps intended to pressure Russia to end its war in Ukraine, including funneling new weapons to Kyiv and threatening economic punishment on Moscow if peace isn’t reached in 50 days, as he grows increasingly disenchanted with his Russian counterpart.
Taken together, the moves amount to a markedly new approach to the conflict, which Trump has worked to distance himself from since taking office in January. Even as he delivered the announcement from the Oval Office, the president argued he wasn’t to blame for the prolonged war.
Still, he appeared entirely fed up with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And he acknowledged American weaponry – however it is delivered – would be necessary if Kyiv is to stave off a full-bore invasion.
“I felt we had a deal about four times,” Trump said, referring to a prospective peace agreement with Russia. “But it just kept going on and on.”
The plan the president unveiled Monday – which would see European nations purchase American weapons, then transfer them to Ukraine – has been under discussion for months, ever since Trump won last year’s election and European officials quickly began deliberating on ways to sustain US weapons shipments to Ukraine under a leader who had vowed to pull back American support.
Eight months later, the president announced the plan during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office. The president also laid out his new deadline for Russia — threatening trade consequences if no peace deal is reached with Ukraine within 50 days.
“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days,” Trump said. “Tariffs at about 100%, you’d call them secondary tariffs. You know what that means.”
A White House official clarified to CNN that when the president referred to “secondary tariffs,” he meant 100% tariffs on Russia and secondary sanctions on other countries that buy Russian oil. The US conducts very little trade with Russia, making the secondary sanctions the piece with potentially the most bite.
“I use trade for a lot of things,” Trump said. “But it’s great for settling wars.”
Underpinning the president’s two announcements Monday was his newfound irritation toward Putin, with whom he shares a long and sometimes confounding relationship. Once complimentary of Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, Trump appeared angry that his overtures on ending the war have been mostly ignored in Moscow.
“My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,” Trump said, even as he denied falling into a trap set for his predecessors: “He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden — he didn’t fool me.”
Sitting alongside Trump, Rutte described the weapons agreement as a game-changer. He identified several nations – including Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway – as potential suppliers of the new equipment.
For Trump’s part, the new European contribution was welcome. He described himself as newly impressed with the continent’s willingness to shoulder some of the burden of the war.
“Europe has a lot of spirit for this war. When I first got involved I really didn’t think they did, but they do,” he said. “The level of esprit de corps they have is amazing.”
The president described sending a “full complement” of weapons as part of the new arrangement. In addition to Patriot missile batteries — the top item on Kyiv’s wish list and one Trump said Sunday was vital to Ukraine’s defenses — the US could also sell short-range missiles, Howitzer rounds and medium-range air-to-air missiles to NATO members, which would then be transferred to Ukraine, a person familiar with the deliberations said ahead of the announcement.
Securing more Patriot batteries is a major win for Ukraine. The threat of losing access to these air defense systems has long been among Ukraine’s biggest worries as they play a key role in protecting the lives of millions of Ukrainian civilians.
The thinking behind Trump’s decision on weapons is multifold, officials said.
By selling weapons to European nations, rather than transferring them to Ukraine itself, Trump hopes to insulate himself from political criticism that he is reversing a campaign pledge to reduce the US role in the years-long war.
He is also expecting a financial windfall: Each Patriot missile system costs roughly $1 billion, and he has already touted the profits for the US as part of the scheme.
American officials also noted it would be quicker to get the Patriot systems to Ukraine if they are already in Europe as opposed to moving them from the United States or producing them new at a US factory.
And, at least in the view of some US officials, providing Ukraine with a surge in new weaponry could send a signal to Moscow that Trump is serious about his frustrations with Putin, who the US leader accused of peddling “bullshit” last week.
“He’s seriously frustrated with Putin,” a US official said. “He wants to show he’s serious about ending the war, and maybe this will show Putin it’s time to start negotiating.”
The plan was discussed in earnest around last month’s NATO summit in the Netherlands, where Trump met with European leaders and the Ukrainian president for talks described by people familiar as surprisingly productive.
But its origins actually came months earlier, after Trump won last year’s election — thrusting US support for Kyiv into fresh doubt. European officials, at that stage, began conceiving of a way to allow for continued weapons support to Ukraine even if Trump pulled back Washington’s role, as he had promised as a candidate.
For the last two weeks, officials in the US and Europe have been working on the details of how the plan would operate. NATO does not itself dispatch weapons to Ukraine, but rather acts as a clearinghouse, coordinating deliveries from individual countries.
The mechanism for transferring the weapons could include European nations transferring weapons already bought from the United States and backfilling them with new purchases. Or they could purchase new US weapons for immediate transfer to Ukraine.
Trump spoke last week to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said on the call he was looking for the US to deliver the systems to Germany so they could be transferred to Ukraine, a person familiar with the call said.
Trump also spoke on Thursday with Rutte to discuss the initiative and lay plans for the secretary general’s visit to the White House on Monday.
Rutte later spoke with top US military officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to delve further into the details of the plan.
On that call, Rutte said he’d received several messages of interest from European nations looking to join in, a person familiar said.
Ukraine has said it needs 10 new Patriot systems to protect itself against Russia’s increased onslaught of missiles and drones.
At last month’s NATO meeting in the Netherlands, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presented Trump and other leaders with a list of weaponry he said his country needs to stave off Russia’s invasion, according to a US official.
Trump has signed off on some of the items.
And while much of the American military equipment that is used by the Ukrainians on the battlefield can be sourced elsewhere, produced domestically or replaced with alternatives – the Patriots are currently irreplaceable. Ukrainian soldiers even told CNN earlier this month that their biggest immediate worry wasn’t the loss of weapon deliveries for the frontlines, but the lack of Patriot missiles protecting their families and loved ones across Ukrainian cities.
CNN’s Alayna Treene and Ivana Kottasová contributed to this report.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.