Trump warns of 'economic war' if Putin doesn't pursue peace

Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Annmarie Hordern, Bloomberg News on Aug 26, 2025

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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump warned of “an economic war” if he cannot get Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end their conflict, saying he had “very serious” consequences in mind if the fighting continues.

“It will not be a world war, but it’ll be an economic war, and an economic war is going to be bad. It’s going to be bad for Russia, and I don’t want that,” Trump said at a meeting with his cabinet members Tuesday at the White House.

Trump’s comments came in response to a question about whether there was a timeline for Putin to agree to bilateral talks with Zelenskyy before the U.S. president would impose threatened sanctions.

“It’s very serious what I have in mind, if I have to do it,” Trump said, citing the war’s death toll, which he said numbered in the thousands each week.

Trump vowed to end Russia’s war in Ukraine on his first day in office but has found the conflict stubbornly difficult to resolve, even in the aftermath of a historic Aug. 15 summit between Trump and Putin in Anchorage seen as potentially helping deliver a breakthrough.

Trump’s shuttle diplomacy with Putin and Zelenskyy raised the possibility of the warring leaders’ first in-person talks since Russia carried out a full-scale invasion of its neighbor more than three years ago.

Yet more than a week after that Alaska summit, there’s been no meeting scheduled between the two leaders. The White House previously said it believed Putin had agreed to a meeting with Zelenskyy and that planning was underway, though the Kremlin never confirmed the commitment.

While Putin would be ready to meet Zelenskyy when an agenda for that summit is ready, “this agenda is not ready at all,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told NBC on Friday.

Trump has repeatedly threatened sanctions and other “consequences” for Moscow as well as for the countries whose purchases of Russian crude are helping to bankroll its war effort. The president already has set in motion a doubled, 50% tariff on imports from India over its Russian oil purchases, but he’s stopped short of taking further action against China and other nations buying the country’s crude.

Trump has signaled frustration with Russia’s continued attacks in Ukraine — including those he’s said swiftly followed conversations with Putin.

“Zelenskyy’s not exactly innocent either,” he added Tuesday. Trump earlier in his term assailed Zelenskyy as being insufficiently grateful for U.S. support and cast the Ukrainian leader as an obstacle to peace.

“Everybody’s posturing,” Trump said in response to a question about comments from Lavrov that Putin would not sign a peace deal with Zelenskyy.

Trump proposed a peace summit during an Aug. 18 call with Putin, following a White House meeting with Zelenskyy and European leaders to discuss security guarantees they see as necessary to ensure a lasting peace and deter further Russian incursions.

Zelenskyy has said as recently as Aug. 23 that he expects to unveil security guarantees backed by the U.S. and European partners “in the coming days.

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With assistance from Catherine Lucey and Skylar Woodhouse.

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