Trump allows sanctions against Russia to be strengthened and tells what request he made to Xi Jinping

U.S. President Donald Trump does not rule out further strengthening of sanctions against Russia. However, he is currently ready to do so only if Russian dictator Vladimir Putin does not want to negotiate to end the war.

Trump told journalists gathered at the White House about this. The new US president also spoke about a request he had made to Chinese President Xi Jinping: it is also related to the Russian-Ukrainian war.

During the conversation with Trump, journalists asked him if he was ready to impose new sanctions against Russia if Putin refuses to negotiate.

Trump's response was laconic: "It sounds likely."

He was much more verbose when talking about the "reasons" for the war.

"This war should not have started. If you had a competent president, not the one you had, the war would not have started. The war in Ukraine would never have happened if I had been president. ... Russia would never have invaded Ukraine. I had a very strong agreement with Putin, and this would never, ever have happened. He despised Biden," Trump said.

The new US president also said that shortly before his inauguration, on January 17, during a telephone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he asked the Chinese leader to help resolve the situation in Ukraine.

Trump reiterated that he was ready to meet with Putin and said that his administration was currently in talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and was studying the issue of supplying weapons to Ukraine.

"We are working on it. We are talking to Zelensky and will soon talk to President Putin. We'll see how things work out. One thing I feel: The European Union should pay much more than it does now. We have already spent over 200 billion dollars under Biden. This concerns them more than us, because we are separated by an ocean. The European Union has to equalize its spending. We spend more than they do. This is unreasonable. NATO should also raise its contributions, not to 2% of GDP, but to 5%. 2% is ridiculous," Trump emphasized.

As a reminder, on his first day in office, Trump signed a decree on the death penalty, as well as restricted the acquisition of US citizenship by birthright and decided to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and the WHO.

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