While meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland this week, Donald Trump dropped a diplomatic bombshell. The 50-day deadline he’d given Russia to agree to a ceasefire in the Ukraine war, issued on July 14, was being slashed to only a dozen days as of Monday.
The reason? “I’m disappointed in President Putin,” Trump said.
Trump’s impatience is unlikely to change Putin’s calculus or the outcome on the battlefield one way or the other. Putin paid little attention to the first deadline and there’s no reason for that to change now.
Following the imposition of the initial 50-day threat of secondary sanctions against Russia if they refused an unconditional ceasefire, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that “any attempts to make demands (against Russia), especially ultimatums, are unacceptable to us.” Ryabkov added that Putin had said the Russians “are ready to negotiate and the diplomatic path is preferable for us.”
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev darkly warned against the move, writing on X that Trump “should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn't Israel or even Iran. 2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country.” The U.S. president doesn’t appear to be worried about Medvedev’s warning, however, as Trump appears ready to impose secondary tariffs on Russia’s biggest energy buyers like China, India, and Brazil.
The U.S. and China are still in tough trade negotiations after the trade war earlier this year in which America imposed 145 percent tariffs on China and China tagged the U.S. with 125 percent tariffs. Those were temporarily reduced in May but remain unresolved. A CNBC report on Monday warned that if the current impasse couldn’t be worked out, Chinese imports to the U.S. could be reduced by a staggering $485 billion by 2027.
Now, on top of those already difficult negotiations, the Trump administration could shoot the tariff rate on China back up to 100 percent. This would cause conditions to materially worsen for the United States.
Defense Priorities Senior Fellow Jennifer Kavanagh warned earlier this year that Trump’s trade tactics with China risked backfiring, as they could unnecessarily complicate security concerns in the Indo-Pacific. Those concerns would be greatly increased should a new tariff increase of 100 percent be levied on top of the still unresolved trade dispute.
We also risk turning friendly India against American interests by imposing a tariff on New Delhi for buying Russian gas and oil. India warned Washington not to engage in “double standards” by threatening tariffs on India for buying Russian petroleum products while protecting European customers who do the same.
Likewise, economic discussions between Brazil and the U.S. are already heated, and any new sanctions could undo months of intense negotiations.
None of this would be good for the United States. The cold truth is that Russia is in the dominant position in its war with Ukraine and does not have to make concessions to give Trump the 30-day ceasefire he continues to demand. My best military assessment, after a career in the U.S. Army and four combat deployments, is that there is no military path for Ukraine to ever reverse the territorial losses they have suffered to Russia since 2022.
Further, Biden infamously declared he would “impose severe cost on the Russian economy” by slapping tough sanctions on Russia in 2022, yet utterly failed. The Russian economy, which was never very intertwined with the U.S. economy, adapted to bypass Western pressures, becoming more resilient to outside pressure—and the Russian army is definitely stronger now than it was in 2022. Why worsen our situation further in pursuit of the militarily and economically unattainable?
President Trump should stop trying to pressure Putin into taking action against his own self-interest. This never worked during the Biden administration, it hasn’t worked during the first six months of Trump’s second term, and it won’t work in the future.
Instead, Trump should do something that can work: safeguard American interests.
The president could declare that the U.S. has done everything it possibly can over the past three and a half years to give Ukraine a chance to militarily defeat Russia. He could argue it would be irrational to double down on such failed actions and instead cease all U.S. aid entirely and withdraw all U.S. military personnel supporting Ukraine. He could then leave it up to Ukraine and Europe to continue a pointless war—or reach the best “ugly” deal they can get.
Trump would then be free to strengthen U.S. national security by focusing much energy and money on rebuilding our badly depleted arsenals, especially of interceptor missiles and artillery shells.
Ultimately, the American president is obligated to ensure the American armed forces are equipped and trained to defend our interests. Continuing to draw down our inventory or divert our production to another country further weakens our ability to defend America.
Daniel L. Davis is a retired Army Lt. Col. with four combat deployments and is presently Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities. He is also host of the Daniel David Deep Dive show on YouTube.
