The White House stated that a fresh round of sanctions against Russia will put “a lot” of pressure on Moscow, raising the possibility that US President Donald Trump may eventually opt to tighten the penalties.
During a briefing on Thursday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated, “If you read the sanctions and look at them, they’re pretty hefty,” referring to rumors that China and India, the two biggest consumers of Russian oil, were reducing their imports.
“It’s full court press for sure, and we expect that these sanctions are going to do harm,” she said.
The Trump administration demanded a quick ceasefire in Ukraine and levied penalties on Russia’s two biggest oil corporations on Wednesday.
Leavitt did not respond when asked if more fines might be imposed in the future.
“I’ll leave that to the President (Trump) to decide,” she replied.
Leavitt told CNN on Thursday that President Trump had “not seen enough interest” in “moving the ball forward towards peace” from the Russian side, which is why he opted to impose further sanctions against Russia and cancel a scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The President has always maintained that he would implement sanctions on Russia when he felt it was appropriate and necessary — and yesterday was that day,” she stated on CNN.
“I think the President has also long expressed his frustration with Vladimir Putin, and frankly, both sides of this war, and he’s always said in order to negotiate a good peace deal, both sides need to be interested in a good peace deal,” Leavitt stated.
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters at the White House that he had “cancelled” the meeting with Putin, saying, “It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get — so I cancelled it, but we’ll do it in the future.”
Leavitt continued: “And so, a meeting between these two leaders is not completely off the table — I think the President and the entire administration hopes that one day that can happen again — but we want to make sure that there’s a tangible positive outcome out of that meeting, and that it’s a good use of the President’s time.”
When asked whether the Trump-Putin meeting was canceled following a phone conversation between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday that exposed “divergent expectations” between the two presidents, Leavitt responded that there were other variables at work.
“That was not the sole reason, no,” she said to CNN.
“I think the Secretary Rubio felt that was actually a productive call, but again, the President wants to make sure that a meeting between himself and President Putin will be a good use at this time.”
The European Union imposed a 19th round of sanctions against Russia earlier Thursday, focusing on the military, energy, and financial sectors.
Alongside US President Trump, the union has imposed financial sanctions on Moscow.
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