Ahead of his high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin Friday, US president Donald Trump suggested that his tariffs on India “essentially took them out of buying oil from Russia,” and may have played a role in bringing Moscow to the negotiating table. Trump said he believes Putin “wants to get it done,” ahead of their summit in Alaska tomorrow.
“I believe now he’s convinced that he’s going to make a deal. He’s going to make a deal. I think he’s going to. And we’re going to find out — I’m going to know very quickly,” Trump said on Fox Radio’s “The Brian Kilmeade Show” Thursday.
Asked if his sanctions threats influenced Putin’s decision to meet, Trump said: “Everything has an impact,” adding that secondary tariffs against India “essentially took them out of buying oil from Russia.”
“Certainly, when you lose your second largest customer and you’re probably going to lose your first largest customer, I think that probably has a role,” he said, according to The Guardian.
Trump refused to confirm if he was ready to offer “economic incentives” to stop the war in Ukraine, saying he wouldn’t “want to play my hand in public.” He emphasised Russia’s “tremendous potential” in “oil and gas, a very profitable business,” but stressed his priority was progress with Putin.
A second summit with Zelenskyy
The US President said he would call Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “to get him over to wherever we are going to meet” if the talks went well, noting: “We have an idea of three different locations… including the possibility, because it would be by far the easiest, of staying in Alaska.”
“If it’s a bad meeting, I’m not calling anybody. I’m going home. But if it’s a good meeting, I’m going to call President Zelenskyy and the European leaders,” Trump said.
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According to him, a second meeting involving himself, Putin, and Zelenskyy would likely focus more deeply on boundary issues. Zelenskyy, however, has repeatedly insisted that he will not cede territory currently occupied by Russian forces.
“The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don’t want to use the word ‘divvy things up,’ but you know, to a certain extent, it’s not a bad term, OK?” he said.
“But there will be a give and take as to boundaries, lands, etc, etc. The second meeting is going to be very, very very important. This meeting sets up like a chess game. This (first) meeting sets up a second meeting, but there is a 25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting,” he added.
On whether a joint press conference was planned with Putin, Trump said: “I’m going to have a press conference. I don’t know if it’s going to be a joint… I think it might be nice to have a joint, and then separates.” He added he would speak to the press even if the talks collapsed.
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Trump also spoke about the odds of failure of talks: “There is a 25 per cent chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting, in which case I will [return to] run the country and we have made America great again already in six months.” He suggested new sanctions on Russia could follow if that happened.
The Us President also said that it would be up to Putin and Zelenskyy to strike an agreement, “I’m not going to negotiate their deal. I’m going to let them negotiate their deal.”
At the end of the interview, Trump said of tomorrow’s summit: “We’ll do the best we can, and I think we’ll have a good result in the end.”