Trump issues threat of sanctions, tariffs on Russia

Plus, there is virtually no more trade anyway.

Compared to 2021, their trade is down about 90%

Pure PR move to try to look impartial. You can tell by the fact ~~Trump's original owners~~ the Kremlin haven't bothered to respond to it.

Zeleinski hit him with that one already and it was fairly funny to watch both of them scramble to respond.

We've been saying that for over 8 years.

I don't think it is spongey anymore. Mostly calcified now.

Trump is by no means chaotic neutral. Dude is the embodiment of the 7 deadly sins. He's about as evil as you can get

I'd be willing to bet his entire administration is run by an AI chatbot.

Medical care in prison is better than not having insurance. He can go to prison and tell the COs he's going to tariff the commissary.

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It doesn't make sense because it isn't supposed to. That is the point.

If Trump had one in 2020 he would have been left with the same situation but his base would have praised him regardless of what he did.

I never understood the criticism of Bidens handling of Afghanistan. He was given an impossible deadline (due to Trump) and followed through with what I imagine is minimal casualties. And at the end of the day, he did what three other president's coudlnt do, which was get us out of there.

He meant a concept of a plan.

I also watched an analysis the other day from someone taking the position that Trump really views this in terms of scoring domestic political points --- like, he's the peacemaker president, and Biden is the incompetent war president, which is a theme that he's been campaigning on. If one agrees with that, he also wants the war ended quickly, which places even more impractical constraints on Rubio and similar.

It is the same logic he used his first term when he made the deal with the Taliban to pull US troops out of Afghanistan. It was never going to work but he thought it looked good. The fact he lost and Biden got stuck with the aftermath was a bonus.

You lost me at "plan".

I wouldn't bet on Trump and Musk being unwilling to put US troops on the ground. Right now they haven't because it'll look better if they can negotiate a deal without using force so Trump can brag about how skilled he is at negotiating.

But Trump won't be able to negotiate a deal because he couldn't negotiate his way out of a wet paper bag, so I expect us to deploy troops within the next 6 months.

If we view it through the lens of him actually wanting Putin to win and Zelinsky to lose because of personal insult its even easier. He merely needs a pretext to stop support. Zelinsky can pick between a pretence of peace followed by Russia regrouping and crushing them and total capitulation.

Easiest way is to front load so many demands that they never sit down. The important thing isnt even so much Russia winning as much as getting to snub Z.

His actions being that of an ignorant 4 year old rollin on whatever he was told last makes him easier to comprehend

I feel like he doesn't really understand most of what is happening but he just says the first thing that comes to mind when he hears stuff.

This is something happening in Europe as well though, you've probably noticed it if you follow Dutch politics. There are these people who just yell out stuff that sounds pretty good but once action has to be taken, they find out it's never as simple as they'd imagined it to be. The end result is they get nothing done and their disillusioned voters are too stubborn to admit that they were susceptible to populism.

That was established a long time ago

The ones who are completely out of their minds are the whole US government and the American people who chose this moron to represent and lead them.

No greater fool that the person or people who chose to follow a fool.

Yes, he's been exhibiting clear signs of dementia since like 2016, and it's only progressed since then. The man isn't even competent enough to tie his shoes without adult supervision.

He needs to be in a nursing home, not running the country.

Yes, but he still is useful for the elite. He makes a big mess, they rich buy the parts for cheap and privatize them.

My understanding is that pressure on both Ukraine and Russia was basically part of the Trump administration's plan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Kellogg

In June 2024, Kellogg and Frederick H. Fleitz, who had also served on Trump's National Security Council staff, presented Trump with a detailed peace plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine.[30] The plan proposes a ceasefire on the current front lines, forcing both Russia and Ukraine into peace talks, and continued military aid to Ukraine if it agrees to a ceasefire and peace talks. If Russia did not also agree to a ceasefire and peace talks, the United States would increase arms supplies to Ukraine. Ukraine would not have to formally cede the occupied and annexed territories to Russia, but would postpone its plans for NATO membership for a longer period of time, and the territories currently under Russian occupation would remain under de facto Russian control. Kellogg and Fleitz said their main concern is that the war has devolved into attrition warfare that could wipe out an entire generation of young men in both countries.[31][32]

>

>In November 2024, President-elect Trump selected Kellogg to be his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.[2]

Michael Kofman's has been skeptical of Trump's direction here, has said that he's likely to have problems getting Russia to go along with anything that isn't total capitulation for Ukraine, because the Kremlin thinks that it's going to win this militarily. He's also pointed out that Ukraine doesn't have any incentive to go along with something that puts it in a weaker position, which basically anything that Russia would accept, as things stand, would. And the war only stops if both sides feel that they're better off with it stopping.

The US has a finite amount of leverage here, unless it's willing to do something like put troops in, which it isn't willing to do.

EDIT: I also watched an analysis the other day from someone taking the position that Trump really views this in terms of scoring domestic political points --- like, he's the peacemaker president, and Biden is the incompetent war president, which is a theme that he's been campaigning on. If one agrees with that, he also wants the war ended *quickly*, which places even more impractical constraints on Rubio and similar.

Ok he's looking at proposals to lift the sanctions, but hasn't lifted them.

I'm not aware of any repealed Russian sanctions or tariffs.

This dude is completely out of his mind.

This is entirely performative. You don’t threaten to sanction banks and give investors time to pull their money, and it’s not like Russia cares about investing in our rapidly declining market anyway.

If Trump was ‘so concerned’ about Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, he’d reinstate intelligence.

Big toddler just learned his first word! "Ta-riff!" Now he can't stop repeating it!

"Say hi to Uncle Trudeau?" "Ta-riff!"

" What do you give papa Putin?""Ta-rrff!" *giggles*

Didn't he just repealed all the sanctions and tariffs on Russia?

Theatre. Gotta pretend to be a tough guy.

Oop optics are down gotta spin some bullshit that they’ll “forget” they did when flip flopping creates “weak leadership” headlines later. Back and forth.

Ha ha ha this is not happening.

Just the other day he was directing people to draft up how to remove all sanctions on Russia.

Maybe we could find a way to implement a 1 week lag on anything he demands, if it's countermanded in that time then the week starts over again. Kind of like a retractable leash on caption chaos.

Same guy that said sanctions don't work and was trying to remove Russian sanctions a couple days ago. Complete clown show.

hahahahahahaha oh how cute, trumps trying to play to the cameras. fascist douchebag already gave the game away. allies know it, citizens know it, this mothefucker has to be stopped.

This has been a really long 'day one' process. Pretty soon his 'i will stop the war my first day in office' will rival putins plan to conquer Ukraine in 3 days.

Maybe, just maybe, someone in the right position could question his mental health status

"I love you.... er...no I don't....ok I do... nah I don't think so...."

What the fuck is he going to put tariffs on? The imported oligarchs?

Is there any other country that has isolated themselves from as many possible allies in recent history? North Korea is at the very least tolerated by China *and* Russia, who does the US still have positive relations with? Maybe Israel?

I mean, I guess we'll see. Donald just spews out whatever comes to his spongey brain at any given moment.

I've long thought that even if Russia is supporting Donald, that doesn't really make Donald Russia's "operative." That gives far too much credit to Donald. He never keeps any agreement he's made for one second longer than he thinks it's personally benefiting him.

I doubt that this will piss Putin off as much as some may think.

Putin (may god bless his grand pecks) knows how Trump ‘negotiates’, that is Trump says a lot of nonsense and you have to treat Trump as if he is writing up the best damn deal for America of all time even if it is a load of nothing (like USMCA which is renamed NAFTA or the US-Ukraine Mineral Deal which would have given Ukraine tons of investment in return for mostly fuck all). You have to treat the little orange self proclaimed god-emperor as if he really is one.

Trump hates Iran because Iran embarrassed him.

Trump hates Zelenskyy because Zelenskyy shat on him and attempted to embarrass Trump.

This dude's ability to keep everyone on their toes is unprecidented.

Chaotic neutral, at the helm of an empire. This has to be a social experiement. If you'll excuse the conjecture, I'm going to give my best guess as to what is really going on.

There's gotta be an octopus in a tank with mutliple colored balls. When the octopus is allowed to pick a ball, it determines which politcal terminology choice wheel of corrosponding color is spun, and a dart is thrown. Once enough words are strung together, they hand the document to the cast and crew of Impractical Jokers, who are talking to Trump with an earpiece.