U.S. President Donald Trump’s deadline for Russia to cease its war in Ukraine expires on Friday, as markets watch whether the White House will proceed with steep penalties on Moscow’s oil clients.
Increasingly frustrated with the Kremlin, Trump has pledged “secondary tariffs” of “about 100%” on Russia’s trade partners, if Moscow does not end its invasion in Ukraine, setting an initial 50-day timeline that was later shortened.
Trump has made ending the war in Ukraine a key foreign policy objective of his second presidential mandate, reversing course on an initial thawing of White House relations with Moscow to now pile on pressure on the Kremlin for the lull in diplomatic progress.
At the heart of Russia and Ukraine’s inability to strike a ceasefire to date have been differences over Putin’s maximalist demands that the war can only end if Kyiv gives up its ambitions to join the NATO military alliance and if Moscow retains four Ukrainian regions annexed during the latest conflict. Russia also seeks a final conclusion to the war and has previously called for new elections in Ukraine.
Earlier in the week, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff travelled for an eleventh-hour meeting with Putin, which Trump hailed as “highly productive.”
