US President Donald Trump once again resorted to tariffs on Monday, not to balance the trade balance, but to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to come to the negotiating table with Ukraine and accept a ceasefire."I am very, very unhappy [with Putin]; we should have had a peace agreement two months ago," Trump said in a stern tone, underscoring his change of attitude toward his Russian counterpart in recent days. He then made the"big announcement" the White House had promised: "If there is no agreement before the next 50 days, we will impose tariffs of up to 100% on them [Moscow]."

"They'll be secondary, you know what that means," Trump added, without clarifying how these tariffs will be implemented. The United States barely has any trade with Russia, so these secondary tariffs are a way to hurt Moscow by taxing the trade of countries that, like India or China, do have economic relations with Russia, or because they buy oil or gas from it.

Trump issued the threat during NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's visit to the White House. The war in Ukraine was the main topic on the agenda, and Washington woke up expecting a"major change" in Trump's strategy toward Russia, following weeks of growing impatience with Putin. He clarified that he"talks a lot" with Putin, with whom he always comes away with the impression that the talks have yielded more progress than Russian actions on the ground, where bombings of Ukraine have increased in recent weeks, have demonstrated."My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles explode at night," the American leader warned.

“I don't want to say he's a killer, but he is a tough guy. He fooled my predecessors, Bill Clinton, Bush Jr., and Barack Obama, but not me: there has to be progress immediately,” explained the Republican president, who said he had reached “like four agreements” with Putin, which he later failed to honor, and insisted that Ukraine is “Joe Biden's war,” and that with him in the Oval Office it wouldn't have happened.

Rutte's visit came just hours after the US president announced to the press on Sunday that Washington would send Patriot missile defense systems to Ukraine, but that the cost of producing"this sophisticated weaponry" would be borne by the European partners of the Atlantic Alliance, as he repeated three times. Monday's appearance also served to confirm the delivery of these Patriot missiles.

The operation involves American arms manufacturers selling them to intermediary countries, who, in turn, send them to kyiv. These are anti-aircraft batteries whose use requires months of training, according to experts, which Ukrainian soldiers will also have to undergo.

kyiv has been asking for this kind of assistance for some time. The announcement comes as a relief after the Pentagon decided to halt arms shipments to Ukraine, a decision Trump later distanced himself from.

Conflict resolution

The Republican said this Monday that"trade is useful for many things, including ending wars." He argued that in his nearly six months in the White House, he has ended several conflicts: between Rwanda and the Congo; between Kosovo and Serbia; and the nuclear escalation between Pakistan and India. Obviously, attributing these victories is, at the very least, an exaggeration.

Trump also spoke about the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Gaza, which he's been touting as a done deal every day for the past week, but which hasn't been reached. He said of the Palestinian Strip,"It's the worst real estate deal in history." "How did they let them keep the beachfront property?" asked the president, who has a background in the real estate business. He lamented, in this context of conflict resolution, that he hadn't been able to end the war in Ukraine, despite his campaign promise that it would take him a day to achieve it.

Rutte's Oval Office meeting was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Washington time (4:00 p.m. in mainland Spain), but it started 75 minutes late. Rutte also scheduled meetings with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and both attended the meeting with Trump alongside Vice President J.D. Vance.

This isn't the first time the NATO secretary and the US president have met in Washington; Rutte traveled to the capital last March. They already showed their mutual appreciation then, although nothing foreshadowed what would happen at the end of June, during the NATO summit held in the Netherlands. This summit will be remembered for the commitment of the Alliance's European partners to increase their defense spending, as Trump had hoped, and for Rutte's somewhat embarrassing compliments to the Republican leader.

The Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 2010 to 2024, the year he took over the leadership of the Atlantic Alliance, grabbed headlines and became meme fodder when Trump released a private message in which Rutte congratulated him in capital letters for the June 21 bombing of Iran, and assumed that the Europeans would pay what he had asked (all partners agreed, except Spain). At another point during the summit, the NATO Secretary General called the leader of the world's leading power"daddy."

Rutte defended his strategy of flattering Trump, which has so far proven effective, in an interview with The New York Times: “I think when someone deserves praise, it’s only fair to give it to him. And President Trump deserves all the praise, because without his leadership, without his re-election as president of the United States, 2% [of GDP on defense] this year and 5% in 2035, we would never have been able to reach an agreement on that,” the NATO secretary said.

Trump is convinced that the rules of geopolitics (and economics) must change, after decades in which, in his opinion, allies have taken advantage of Washington."Countries should reflect and say: thank you for the many years you have paid for our party, but we know it's now our turn to do the right thing for the United States. And we must respond: thank you for understanding the situation we find ourselves in. Thank you very much!" Trump wrote Monday morning on his social media platform, Truth.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with the Trump administration's U.S. envoy to the region, Keith Kellogg. Following that meeting, Zelensky's office issued a statement stating that the conversation between the two focused on the possibility of a ceasefire and the arms shipments that Zelensky has been demanding in recent weeks, amid an increase in Russian airstrikes.

"The parties also discussed joint drone production, the possibility of direct U.S. purchases of Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, and the possibility of acquiring weapons in cooperation with European partners," the statement said, adding that the conversation"also focused on the overall situation at the front" as well as "the needs of Ukrainian combatants."