Trump says he’s shortening deadline for Putin to reach Russia-Ukraine ceasefire to just 10 or 12 days

President Trump announced Monday a significant tightening of his deadline for Russia’s Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine. He said as he met with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his visit to Scotland that the 50-day deadline he announced earlier this month would be reduced to less than two weeks, citing a lack of progress in negotiations. 

Mr. Trump said as he headed in for his meeting with Starmer that he was “very disappointed” in Russia’s leader over the ongoing bombing of Ukrainian cities, and that the deadline he gave Russia a couple weeks ago to agree to a truce would be reduced.

Mr. Trump said earlier this month that if Russia failed to agree to a ceasefire within the 50-day timeframe, the U.S. would impose secondary tariffs of up to 100% on goods sold by countries that continue to do business with Russia. That would have meant a deal agreed by around the end of August.

But Mr. Trump told reporters on Monday, as he sat down with Starmer, that he was “going to make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today.”

“There’s no reason in waiting,” Mr. Trump said. “We just don’t see any progress being made.”

“I’ve spoken to President Putin a lot, I’ve gotten along with him very well,” Mr. Trump said earlier, before sitting down with Starmer.

But he lamented that the Russian leader, “goes out and starts launching rockets into some city, like Kyiv, and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever, you have bodies lying all over the street.”

Mr. Trump said he was “very disappointed in Putin,” adding: “I’m going to reduce that 50 days that I gave him to a lesser number, because I think I already know the answer what’s going to happen.”

Russia rejected the deadline when the White House first announced it, calling it “unacceptable.”

“I’m not so interested in talking anymore,” Mr. Trump said of Putin, explaining that he and Putin will have a nice conversation, and then the following day, the Russians killed more Ukrainians. 

Seated alongside Starmer, Mr. Trump also addressed the situation in Gaza, saying the U.S. will be providing food to the people of Gaza and working to eliminate barriers to humanitarian aid. 

“Some of those kids are, that’s real starvation stuff,” Mr. Trump said Monday. “I see it. And you can’t fake that. So we’re going to be even more involved.” 

While ostensibly a private trip, marked by multiple rounds of golf on his own luxury courses in Scotland, Mr. Trump has also done business – including nailing down a long-sought-after U.S.-European Union trade agreement.

After meeting for just over one hour with EU leader Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday, Mr. Trump emerged to say, “We have good news. We’ve reached a deal.”

When considered as a combined economy, the EU bloc is the second largest in the world behind the U.S. Including goods and services, U.S.-EU trade is worth about $2 trillion per year. 

“I think it’s great that we made a deal today, instead of playing games,” Mr. Trump said of the framework trade agreement. “I think it’s the biggest deal ever made.”

“It’s a big deal, it’s a huge deal,” agreed Von der Leyen. “It will bring stability. It will bring predictability.”

Mr. Trump’s meeting with Starmer is also touching on trade, though the U.S. and the U.K. already agreed on a framework trade deal last month. Starmer has made it clear he wants to keep pushing Mr. Trump to further ease tariffs on British steel and other imports as the details of the agreement are hashed out.

Mr. Trump said his meeting with Starmer would provide a chance to celebrate the U.S.-U.K. agreement, along with the new EU deal.

Most EU member nations’ governments voiced support for that agreement on Monday, though some of them unenthusiastically – and the French Prime Minister even took a jab at the bloc, accusing it of “submission” to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump said the tariff rate for the EU’s 27 member countries would be 15% for most imports, including vehicles. The EU, meanwhile, agreed to purchase U.S. military hardware, $750 billion of American energy, and to increase its collective investment in the U.S. by $600 billion.

There was good news for U.S. companies that sell products into the EU market, too, as Mr. Trump announced that all 27 EU nations “will be opened up to trade with the United States at zero tariff.”

The agreement was made at Mr. Trump’s luxury golf resort in Turnberry, on the Scottish coast, where the president spent the weekend teeing off.

The deal avoids a trans-Atlantic trade war that could have unfolded on Friday, when Mr. Trump had threatened to impose a blanket 30% tariff on all goods imported from the EU, which had vowed to retaliate.

That deadline remains in place for countries that have yet to make a deal with the U.S., including Mexico, Canada, and most consequentially, China. On Monday, Mr. Trump said tariffs for countries that don’t reach a deal with the U.S. will be “somewhere in the 15% to 20% range,” which differs from the 15% to 50% range he floated last week. 

Trade talks between Beijing and Washington were taking place Monday in Stockholm, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in interviews over the weekend that the Aug. 1 deadline for deals to be reached wasn’t flexible.

“No extensions, no more grace periods. August 1, the tariffs are set. They’ll go into place. Customs will start collecting the money, and off we go,” Lutnick said.