President Donald Trump on Friday said the U.S. will ‘just take a pass’ at peace efforts for Ukraine if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to agree to ceasefire terms.
‘If for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re going to just take a pass,’ Trump told reporters. ‘But hopefully we won’t have to do that.’
The president’s comments echoed those made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio early Friday morning following a meeting in Paris with special envoy Steve Witkoff and French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as officials from Ukraine, Germany and the U.K. — the first meeting of its kind, which signaled greater European involvement in U.S. efforts to secure a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire.
While Ukraine has agreed to both full and interim ceasefire proposals, Russia has delayed any agreement for weeks, though it is for the most part still believed to be adhering to a 30-day ceasefire on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
‘If we’re so far apart this won’t happen, then the president is ready to move on,’ Rubio told reporters in Paris following his talks, which he described as ‘very positive.’
‘We’re not going to continue to fly all over the world and do meeting after meeting after meeting if no progress is being made,’ Rubio said. ‘We’re going to move on to other topics that are equally if not more important in some ways to the United States.’
It remains unclear where the U.S. would stand in not only aiding Ukraine, should Russia refuse to end its illegal invasion, but whether Trump would go through with his previous threats to enact more sanctions on Russia.
Last month, during an interview with NBC News, Trump said he was ‘very angry’ and ‘pissed off’ after Putin first showed signs of being unwilling to engage in a ceasefire with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
‘If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,’ he said.
‘That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States,’ he added. ‘There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.’
Trump would not comment on the ‘specific number of days’ Russia has before he determines whether it’s serious about ending the war, but he told reporters on Friday it needs to happen ‘quickly — we want to get it done.’