MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Thursday it saw nothing particularly new in a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to hit Russia with new sanctions and tariffs if it did not agree to end the war in Ukraine.
Referring to Russia and the war, Trump said on Wednesday: “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”
Trump said he would be doing a very big favour to Russia and Putin by getting them to bring an end to what he called “this ridiculous war”.
Asked about Trump’s comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump had often applied sanctions against Russia in his first term as president.
“We do not see any particularly new elements here,” Peskov told reporters. “He likes these methods, at least he liked them during his first presidency.”
Moscow was closely monitoring all Trump’s statements, said Peskov.
“We carefully record all the nuances. We remain ready for dialogue, President Putin has repeatedly spoken about this – for equal dialogue, for mutually respectful dialogue.”
Trump, who earlier this week said the Ukraine conflict was “destroying” Russia, has said he plans to speak to Putin soon. Peskov said Moscow was still waiting for “signals” from the U.S. side.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva and Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
