Donald Trump said he was “disappointed” in Vladimir Putin, who has kept attacking Ukraine as if the leaders’ telephone conversations “didn’t mean anything.” Trying to hide that he had been fooled by the Russian president, Trump said – “He’s fooled a lot of people. He fooled Bush. He fooled a lot of people. He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn’t foll me.”
Yet, hilariously, Trump reveals how his wife Melania had mocked him before he realized that he had been fooled by Putin. He exposed his own foolishness in a mini-press conference – “I go home, I tell the first lady, you know, I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation. She said, ‘Oh, really? Another city was just hit.’ So it’s like, look, he’s – I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy.”
The purpose of Trump’s mini-press on Monday (July 15) was to announce that he would slap “100% tariffs” on Russia’s trading partners if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire within 50 days. This secondary tariff would not hit Russia directly as the country is already being sanctioned heavily, but will affect countries like China, whose huge oil imports with Russia amounted to nearly US$250 billion.
Desperate for a deal, Trump also unveiled a new plan to send weapons “quickly” to Ukraine, including the Patriot air defense systems. But the weapons won’t go directly to Ukraine. Instead, the U.S. would send “billions of dollars worth of military equipment” purchased from American companies, paid for by European countries and delivered to NATO allies to be sent to Ukraine.
The reason Trump is now forced to impose 100% tariffs and send weapons was that he thought Washington and Moscow would have had a deal months ago, only to be tricked and scammed by Putin. Just like how the White House had grandly promised “90 deals in 90 days”, but got only 2 deals (with the U.K. and Vietnam), chances are there won’t be any deal at the end of his 50 days threat with Russia.
Rather than be spooked, the Russian stock market rose by 2.7% after Trump announced the 100% levy. Moscow had actually been expecting tougher sanctions of 500% from the Trump administration. So, the new tariffs and 50 day timeline were seen as “non-punishment”, as Moscow and Washington have almost no trade relationship following Joe Biden’s sanctions.
The U.S. exports only US$500 million in goods to Russia, and imported only about US$3 billion in Russian goods in 2024, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Most of Russian exports to America have been deemed essential, including fertilizer, iron, steel and uranium for U.S. nuclear reactors. Because it’s meaningless to impose primary tariff, Trump has resorted to secondary tariff.
Crucially, almost everyone believes Trump would pull another TACO (Trump Always Chicken Out) stunt again because the 100% tariffs will take a heavy toll on countries that rely on Russian fossil fuels as part of their energy plan, like China, India, Brazil and Turkiye. There’s a reason why China has condemned the U.S. while Russia remains quiet.
If President Trump follows through on his threat to impose secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian energy, leading to a sharp drop in Russian energy flows, it would lead to higher global energy prices. A higher energy price will benefit Russia and the OPEC oil-producing nations. Slashing energy and electricity prices were promises made by Trump during his re-election campaign.
Besides, this is not the first time that Mr Trump has issued such a threat against an enemy. In March, he said that countries that buy oil and gas from Venezuela will face a 25% levy, and in May he threatened to impose similar levies on countries that import Iranian oil. However, Chinese continue to buy oil from both Venezuela and Iran, and there was nothing the U.S. could do about it.
After chickening out dozens of times, analysts said it was unlikely that Mr. Trump would risk a renewed confrontation with the world’s second-largest economy over Ukraine. By now, the world knows that Donald Trump is notorious for setting deadlines that he does not enforce. After raising the tariff rate on China all the way to 145% before dropping it to 30%, do you really think he will push it to 130% again?
Because China possesses the trump card – rare earth minerals – Donald Trump can only ask how high when Xi Jinping orders the U.S. president to jump. It was not a coincidence that the Trump administration suddenly lifted the ban on Nvidia and AMD AI (Artificial Intelligence) chip sales to China, after shutting down the export in April. It was part of the U.S. deal with China to resume approving export licenses for rare earths.
Trump’s latest 100% secondary tariff on Russia is just another wave of U-turns. It was only in February when Trump called Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky “a dictator without elections” and told him to be grateful and thankful, while praising Putin. In fact, when Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine in 2022, Mr. Trump called Mr. Putin a “genius” for moving to seize large territories of Ukraine.
But when Putin refused to grant Trump his wish to claim an easy victory over a ceasefire in Ukraine, the U.S. president started throwing tantrums. While he was running for president, Mr. Trump said he could settle the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. His boastful remarks have returned to haunt him. Mr. Putin is now convinced that his military could overpower Ukraine’s in the months to come.
In its most recent advances, the Russian army demonstrated vicious fighting in ravines and oak forests, pushing six miles into Ukraine in the northeastern Sumy region before largely stalling. Additionally, Russia has tightened partial encirclements of two cities, Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, in eastern Ukraine in recent months. Russia has also increased the volume of exploding drones and decoys it launches daily this year.
After a July 3 call with President Putin, President Trump complained to reporters that their conversation did not lead to “progress.” The next day, Russia assaulted Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with the largest number of drones and missiles launched since the beginning of the war. “I’m not happy with President Putin at all,” – Mr. Trump complained on July 7.
This time, the American president praised Ukraine of its “tremendous courage” in fighting against Russia, largely because Zelensky agreed in April to surrender Ukrainian mineral wealth to the U.S., and partly because Putin is a hard nut to crack. Whining and bitching that Putin has been throwing bullshit at the U.S., Trump reversed the pause on U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
However, more aid to Ukraine is unlikely to shift the military balance in a major way, otherwise Putin would gladly accept a ceasefire. Equally stunning was his U-turn on NATO. During his first term, Mr. Trump repeatedly criticized NATO and even threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the military alliance. But on Monday, the same man praised NATO – “I have to tell you, Europe has a lot of spirit for this war.”
Just like how Beijing believes the TACO president was bluffing about imposing 100% tariff on China for buying Russian oil, Moscow also believes that a U.S. strategy of indefinitely arming Ukraine is “not sustainable,” simply because the size of existing weapons stockpiles in Europe and the United States limits what can be sent to Ukraine in the near future.
While the European defence industry can order new weapons from America, the deliveries may not arrive for months or years. The Israel-Iran mini war had sucked up tonnes of American missiles. The last thing the U.S. wants is to be caught with its pants down if China took advantage of the “weapons shortage” to launch a surprise attack on Taiwan.
But China isn’t the only country doing business with Russia. Many close U.S. allies, including India, Japan, Turkey and the European Union, also do substantial business with Russia. The best part is, despite multiple sanctions packages, the European Union continues to import Russian energy – the EU spent €21.9 billion on Russian oil and gas in 2024, just 1% less than in 2023.
Instead of engage with Trump in a “war of words”, Putin decided to continue to bombard Ukraine every night right after Trump announced his decision to supply Ukraine with new military equipment and threatened to take further economic actions. Even if Moscow decides to talk at the negotiation table, it is another tactic to fool Trump by dragging its feet.
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- More Than Just Trade Deals – Canada And Brazil Levies Show Trump’s Abusing Tariffs As Political Weapon
- Learning Soviet’s Failures – How Xi Jinping Spent Decades Preparing For A Cold War Today With The U.S.
- China Too Strong For U.S. – Why Europe In Trouble As Trump Shifts Target To Bully EU With 50% Tariff Threats
- Art Of War vs. Art Of Deal – China Laughs All The Way To The Bank As Trump Slashes Tariffs From 145% To 30%
- Empty Store Shelves In 2 Weeks – Here’s Why Trump’s Damage Control Is Too Little Too Late, And It Will Be Ugly
- Trump Has Already Lost His Trade War Against China – But He Can’t Find Ways To Climb Down And Save Face
- White House Privately Begging Xi To Call Trump First – But China Slapped 125% Tariff Instead
- Beijing Raises Tariffs To 125% – American Goods No Longer Marketable In China
- Recession 2025 – Why You Should Prepare For A Historic Crash As Massive Correction Builds
- From Terminating Trade Deal To Cancelling $1.1 Trillion Debt Owed To China – Here’re Some Of Trump’s Crazy & Dirty Ideas
- Watch Out Trump!! – China May Weaponize “Rare Earth” To Retaliate Against U.S.’ Ban On Huawei
|
|
July 16th, 2025 by financetwitter
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Comments
Add your comment now.
Leave a Reply