Trump gives Russia ‘10 or 12’ days to move on Ukraine as ‘no progress made’

Donald Trump, in a press conference with UK’s Prime Minister Starmer, told to the media that he will shorten the originally imposed deadline of 50 days, to now some 10-12 days.

The Guardian reports Trump saying: “I’m going to make a new deadline, of about 10, 10 or 12 days from day. There’s no reason for waiting. It was 50 days, I wanted to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”

TheGuardian writes further: “Russian and Ukrainian diplomats met in Istanbul last week, agreeing on little more than a prisoner exchange. Ukraine proposed a summit by the end of August between the Ukrainian V Selenski and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, but Russia’s reply was that such a meeting would only be appropriate if it were to sign an agreement. The meeting was the third negotiation in Istanbul. Putin has not attended any of the talks, despite Trump’s exhortations.”

The deadline is very short. It is also not very clear what Trump expects to happen within these 10-12 days. As well, Trump said that he will not speak to Putin anymore. Does Trump expect Russia to surrender in 10 days, accepting an unconditional ceasfire – which allows Ukraine to rearm and eventually European troops to be deployed in Ukraine?

It seems as that the announced new sanctions on Russia are for sure to be enacted, in a very short time. The question remains if secondary sanctions will be imposed on third countries dealing with Russia, in particular, on oil buyers India and China.

The Russian economy has become almost self-sufficient. It was already disconnected in earlier years as the Covid crisis has shown. Energy and resources exports have been successful for Russia, even though sanctions reduced the income from sales slightly. Such sales were needed for obtaining currencies to trade with technology partners. It may be noted that still today European countries continue to buy Russian oil, indirectly. EU imports of Russian fossil fuels in the third year of the invasion surpass financial aid sent to Ukraine. Despite sanctions, Russian revenues in the third year of the invasion have dropped by only 8% compared to the year prior to the invasion of Ukraine. Since the invasion, Russia has earned an estimated EUR 847 bn from fossil fuels exports globally, ca. EUR 300 bn per year. In comparison, Saudi Arabia exports ca. EUR 200 bn oil per year.

Russia remains therefore, one of the Worlds largest suppliers/exporters of fossil fuels and all countries of the World are purchasing, either directly or indirectly Russian energy.

It is therefore, hard to imagine how the global demand for fossil fuels can be shifted from Russia to other producers. If Donald Trump intends to cut Russian supplies by secondary sanctions and punitive measures on Russia’s clients, including India and China, terrible frictions on the energy markets are to expected. The oil and gas price will go through the roof, the main energy consuming countries will be hit, economies can collapse.

The UK’s Independent writes: “Industry experts warn that these proposed sanctions would be “extremely painful” for the USA and would cause a significant global spike in oil prices, leading to increased inflation. Russia accounts for 5 million barrels a day of oil export (of 80 million barrels globally), and there is nowhere to get those 5 million fast enough to prevent a spike in oil prices.”

In addition, Quatar threatened to stop gas deliveries to Europe – after the EU has dramatically reduced gas imports from Russia.

It does not look good for Europe: on the one hand, Trump is going to cut off Europe’s Russian fossile fuel supply, on the other hand Quatar threatens to cut off gas supplies to Europe. The energy and production costs in Europe will rise substantially. Additionally, Trump’s 15% tariffs will be added to US imports from Europe, the US being the main market for EU exports. EU products will then become expensive and less competitive, the European industries, already in a very bad shape, may suffer further. The resulting social costs can hardly be estimated.

Indeed, Russia will suffer under such new, important sanctions. But not only Russia. India and China will miss cheap energy, as will many countries in the World. The US may also face higher energy prices, and no way to compensate. There will be painful worldwide adaptions, with possible international bankruptcy waves, social unrest, instability on all markets. The economic consequences of a possible closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran was well calculated … consequences of secondary sanctions on oil from Russia targeting third country consumers and buyers of Russian oil can be estimated as well and will have terrible effects on the rest of the World.