A coalition of European leaders has convinced U.S. President Donald Trump that Russia is not interested in ending its war in Ukraine and must be forced to the negotiating table, APA reports, citing Politico.
Now they have to persuade an unpredictable White House to agree on how to make that happen.
A flurry of diplomatic visits over the past week has seen top officials on both sides of the Atlantic meet to talk about new financial restrictions and plans to cut off the flow of Russian oil and gas. A high-level EU technical team was even dispatched to Washington to work on the details of the proposals, whose core aims enjoy mutual agreement, officials and diplomats told POLITICO.
“Trump is finally on our side. The question now is how do you reconcile the two approaches?” said one EU diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door discussions.
While the bloc is putting the finishing touches on a new package of sanctions — the 19th to be imposed on Russia since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — negotiators say privately that the most effective action needs to be taken in partnership with the Americans.
And although there is a broad consensus on the need to pressure Putin to come to the table, the Trump administration prefers to use trade tools like tariffs to drain the Kremlin’s war chest while the EU pushes for formal sanctions on the businesses and financial institutions that deal with Moscow.
A second EU diplomat said they expected “heated discussions” with the U.S. on how to actually go about hitting Russia.
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