Trump could trigger a financial crisis in Russia – if he wants – but fell from his threat of “very serious consequences”

Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended their eagerly awaited meeting in Alaska on Friday without agreement. Trump moved his position on Saturday towards the end of a more complete peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, reflecting Putin’s position, rather than a cease-fire.

He would also have supported Putin’s idea for Ukraine to abandon the territory he holds in exchange for a Russian promise that she will no longer attack.

This marked a great swing of his rhetoric leading to the Alaska meeting because he threatened “very serious consequences” for Russia if Putin did not accept a cease-fire.

When he was asked why he had not followed, Trump said he would hold the new penalties and suggested that the threat was on the table while diplomacy is taking place.

“Because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about it now,” he told Fox News. “Maybe I should think about it in two or three weeks or something like that, but we don’t have to think about it for the moment.”

Trump had previously warned the oil sector of Russia could face secondary sanctions. Oil and gas generate most of the Kremlin revenues, and the United States could exploit this critical vulnerability.

In particular, the Cup of the “shaded fleet” of the oil tankers who delivers the oil of Russia under the radar would send the war economy into a “deep financial crisis”, according to Robin Brooks, main member of the Brookings Institution and former chief economist of the Institute of International Finance.

After the Biden administration sanctioned nearly 200 ships in January, just before Trump’s return, their activity collapsed, he underlined on Saturday in a subordinate position.

But there are 359 additional ships which have already been punished by the European Union or the United Kingdom, but which have not yet been targeted by the United States

“The sanction of these ships would be a hammer blow for the Russian war machine,” wrote Brooks. “There would undoubtedly be a sharp drop in the price of oil from the Urals, reducing the flow of the currency hard to the Russian state, and the ruble would most likely be depreciated.”

Meanwhile, foreign policy is expecting the meeting of Alaska to be a success for Putin, because he was able to avoid serious consequences of Trump while buying time so that his soldiers can make more battlefield gains in Ukraine.

But Melinda Haring, a non -resident main person at the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council, also noted that Trump had an important lever effect on Russia.

“Hopefully Trump sees through the endless appetite of Putin to speak and the tires of pseudo-historical conferences of the Russian dictator,” she wrote in a blog article. “Trump can tighten the Russians; he seems to forget that the United States holds the cards, not Moscow.”

Petroleum and gas revenues fell 27% in July a year ago, and Russia is short of financial resources while war expenses increase its budget deficit.

The National Wealth Fund, a key source of reserves, increased from $ 135 billion in January 2022 to only $ 35 billion last May and should run out later this year.

“The Russian economy is fast approaching a budgetary tightening that will bother its war efforts,” wrote the economist and expert in Russia Anders Åslund in a Project union OP-ED last week. “Although it may not be enough to force Putin to seek peace, it suggests that the walls are getting closer to him.”