U.S. President Issues 100% Ultimatum to Russia

From Ekspert, July 14, 2025,https://expert.ru/v-mire/prezident-ssha-vydvinul-rossii-stoprotsentnyy-ultimatum/. Condensed text:

Editors’ Note. – On July 14, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Russia and its trading partners unless a peace settlement in Ukraine is reached within 50 days. He also announced a deal between the US and NATO to supply US weapons to the Kiev regime using the funds of NATO European members. International relations experts told Ekspert about what lies behind these statements, [and] how they will impact a Ukraine settlement and the normalization of Russia-US relations.

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New tariffs for Russia and arms trade with Europe for Ukraine.

At a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the White House, the US leader expressed discontent with Moscow’s stance: “We are very unhappy – I am – with Russia. We’re very, very unhappy with them and we’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs that are about 100%. You’d call them secondary tariffs.”

According to him, tariffs will be imposed on both Russia and its trading partners. At the same time, the US president said he considers 500% tariffs meaningless: “I mean the 500 is sort of meaningless after a while because at a certain point, it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to be – 100 is going to serve the same function.”

Talking about the new tariffs, Trump said he was confident that it would not come to the point where they would actually be imposed. “I hope we don’t have to do it.*** I feel confident that they will do what has to be done,” he said, referring to steps toward peace by the parties concerned.

The US president also announced a deal between the US and NATO to supply US weapons to Ukraine using funds from European countries: “The European nations know that and we’ve made a deal today, and I’m going to have Mark [Rutte] speak about it, but we’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons and they’re going to be paying for them. We, the US, will not be having any payment made. We are not buying it, but we will manufacture it and they’re going to be paying for it.”

US weapons supplies to Ukraine will be coordinated by NATO, the American leader said: “It’s going to be coordinated by NATO and they’re going to work very much with Matt Whitaker (US ambassador to NATO – Ed.)***and Matt’s going to be coordinating.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte responded to the decision announced [by Trump] as follows: “Totally logical.*** That was Europe stepping up [at the recent NATO summit, where countries adopted the benchmark of 5% of GDP for military spending; see Vol. 77, No. 26, pp. 8-11 – Trans.].*** So I’ve been in contact with many countries.*** Germany massively but also Finland and Denmark and Sweden and Norway, we have [the United] Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada, they all want to be part of this.*** So what we will do is work through the NATO systems to make sure that we know what Ukrainians need.*** Ukraine can get its hands on really massive numbers of military equipment both for air defense but also missiles, ammunition, etc.*** [NATO] countries will move equipment fast into Ukraine and then the US later backfilling it.”

Trump added that the US was going to sell NATO billions of dollars in weapons: “The purpose of this is to say that this is a very big deal we’ve made. This is billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment is going to be purchased from the US going to NATO, etc., and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield. Ukraine will take it up.”

At the end of the meeting, Trump clarified: “It’s fully approved, fully done. We’ll send them a lot of weapons of all kinds, and they’re going to deliver those weapons immediately to the site.”

According to him, new weapons supplies from the US will include Patriot systems; 17 such systems are getting ready to be shipped; and the first portion could be sent to Ukraine “in the next few days.”

Trump boosts stock market, brings down oil prices.On Friday, July 11, Donald Trump’s promises to impose tariffs on Russia and to resume arms shipments to Ukraine brought the Moscow Exchange index down 3%. Selloffs continued over the weekend and early on Monday. As a result, on the morning of July 14, the ME index dropped to 2,616 points. The ME index has fallen below that level, to 2,599 points, only once in 2025 – on April 9.

It should be noted that almost all analysts wrote in their July 14 morning reviews that if the sanctions were not too tough, then the Russian stock market would rebound. And so it did.

[The market] started to rally at 6:10 p.m. Moscow time on Monday, when media outlets began to publish the first quotes from Donald Trump’s remarks. Between 6:10 p.m. and 6:15 p.m., the ME index grew by 1% to 2,642 points, [and] in the next five minutes, by another 1.3%. Such performance shows that short positions were closed on a mass scale after the event.

Nikita Bredikhin, a leading investment analyst with Go Invest, told Ekspert that Russian investors had not ruled out more serious measures: “During the past few days, statements were made in the US Congress regarding support for a bill on new sanctions against Russia, and the possible seizure of Russian gold and foreign exchange reserves. The lack of immediate and significant actions against Russia calmed the Russian stock market, triggering a rally.”

“Donald Trump did not support the bill on 500% tariffs on third countries buying Russian oil. The 100% tariffs that he mentioned, including secondary sanctions against Russian oil importers, were delayed for 50 days. As we know, if the US president postpones some restrictive measures for a certain term, then that term may be extended until those measures are frozen indefinitely,” said Natalya Milchakova, a leading analyst with Freedom Finance Global, commented to Ekspert on the market reaction.

This is why oil quotations dropped a little from $70 per barrel at the start of the US president’s remarks to $69.5 by 8 p.m. Moscow time. “Market participants do not really understand how India and China could completely give up Russian oil, especially India, which has just increased oil imports from Russia. If 500% tariffs were announced, we would probably see oil prices go up. Otherwise, the measures that were announced do not seem to disturb the market. Especially given that such statements sound like par for the course. The market has stopped reacting to them as something out of the ordinary,” Oleg Abelev, head of the analysis department at the Rikom-Trast investment company, told Ekspert.

“Secondary sanctions will not involve tariffs on goods from India, China or other countries that are buying oil from Russia. In theory, they should be applied against specific companies that are importing Russian oil, not entire countries or tankers transporting Russian oil by sea. However, such sanctions against Russian oil are now in effect, which does not prevent Russia from getting high oil and gas revenues. As for China and India, they will not give up Russian oil, especially China as Russia’s closest neighbor, since Russian oil is delivered to some parts of China not by sea, but by pipeline and railway,” Natalya Milchakova believes. . . .

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‘Russia will clearly not negotiate with the US from a position of weakness.’

Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and deputy research programs director at the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. – The first thing that jumps out is that Trump did not announce either the direct transfer of long-range US weapons to Ukraine or the lifting of restrictions on their use deep within Russian territory. Finally, Trump did not ask Congress to approve a new budget for military assistance to Ukraine.

Trump is meeting the demand of MAGA Republicans who are against the US’s serious intervention in the Ukraine conflict at the expense of American taxpayers and to the detriment of the US’s defensive capability.

On the contrary, the idea is that a significant portion of weapons to Ukraine will be transferred by Europe – at the expense of its own defense capability. After all, the US will not immediately backfill all stockpiles: It only pledges to manufacture [such weapons] at its plants later and sell them to Europe.

In other words, Europe is both bankrolling this and reducing its defense capability. As for the US, it is doing neither, while at the same time securing new contracts for its [defense] industry and making money.

At the same time, Trump is trying to convince Russia that it will not manage to wear out the Ukrainian Armed Forces enough to achieve victory, since now Europe will purportedly be able to provide wider support to the Kiev regime with US weapons.

Trump announced the new tariffs in the hope that during these 50 days, Russia’s key partners, including China and India, will exert pressure on it to avoid US “punishment.” The American president is hoping that under such pressure Russia will agree to a conflict freeze, which it finds unacceptable. Clearly, the 50-day deadline may be extended and tariffs lowered. . . .

When all is said and done, we see that Trump is not introducing any negative measures against Russia here and now, but he is trying to talk to [Russia] from a position of strength. And that will have a rather unpredictable impact on a Ukraine settlement.

It can be assumed that the European “party of war” will be inspired by Trump’s “support” and will begin to sabotage a peace settlement even more actively. In this context, the Kiev regime may feel that now it has a chance to endure and say that further meetings in Istanbul are meaningless.

The American president’s statements will also likely have a rather negative effect on the restoration of Russia’s relations with the US. Dialogue will not be interrupted (therein lies the main difference between the Trump administration and the [former US president Joe] Biden administration), but it is strange to talk about any further normalization: After all, Russia will clearly not negotiate with the US from a position of weakness.

‘In 50 days, the American president may revise his statements.’

Timofei Bordachov, director of the Center for Integrated European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and program director at the Valdai International Discussion Club. – I would assess the impact of US President Donald Trump’s statements on the Ukraine settlement process as quite positive. We saw a fairly calm approach on his part – it was unemotional and did not give the Kiev regime any dangerous illusions. Trump showed that he understands very well that you can’t get anything out of Russia by force.

What’s more, he understands very well that the process around Ukraine will be long, drawn-out and will include political, military and economic factors. Looking at the results of the Democrats’ policy, he saw that it is useless and dangerous to take any “decisive actions.” By all indications, he is definitely not going to do so and is behaving very pragmatically.

Needless to say, there is nothing good about arms supplies to the Kiev regime, but, as we know, they have been going on for years, so this is nothing new. At the same time, what Trump had to say (as well as the contented demeanor of his Dutch guest) suggests that the aggregate volumes of those supplies may actually decline.

Rutte was too cheerful: Obviously, Europe does not want to spend too much on Ukraine, and the NATO secretary general was clearly happy that [Europe] would not really have to put its industry on a war footing but essentially can get off with just a trade deal with Washington.

As for the tariffs, everyone realizes that in 50 days, the American president may retract his statements and make new ones. This fits neatly into his general line.

Trump’s statements will not become a turning point. He is currently acting on the assumption that all turning points are past: Of course, [he] still needs to entertain the public with big talk, but not to do anything stupid.