WASHINGTON -- So far, Russia has resisted Western calls for a cease-fire in its war on Ukraine. And so far, US President Donald Trump has resisted calls by Kyiv and European countries to impose additional sanctions on Moscow in response.
Trump has threatened to use "devastating" measures against Russia if he feels the time is right. But he has repeatedly said that time has not yet come, voicing concern that imposing new sanctions could undermine his push for peace by hardening President Vladimir Putin's stance.
"Only the fact that if I think I'm close to getting a deal," he told reporters at the White House on May 28 when asked what was stopping him from hitting Moscow with new sanctions. "I don't want to screw it up by doing that. You have to know when to use that."
When and if that time comes, what could new US measures look line?
"There's been a lot of talk about policies that they could adopt but at this point, it's not clear what plan that would be," Rachel Ziemba, a sanctions expert at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank, told RFE/RL.
Another round of sweeping sanctions would come at an inopportune time for Moscow, with Russia's economy slowing sharply amid falling oil prices and prohibitively high interest rates. It could be headed for a "hard landing," a term used to describe a bad recession, London-based consultancy Capital Economics warned earlier this month.
Trump has not described any potential measures in detail. For the moment, at least, the chief focus of decisions about potential new US punishments is a bipartisan bill spearheaded by Senators Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (Democrat-Connecticut).
The Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 would hit Russian banks and other entities supporting Moscow's war on Ukraine with primary sanctions, while using secondary sanctions to slap penalties on countries, companies, and individuals worldwide that do business with the targeted entities.
In addition, it would impose tariffs of at least 500 percent on imports from any country that "knowingly sells, supplies, transfers, or purchases oil, uranium, natural gas, petroleum products, or petrochemical products that originated in the Russian Federation," according to the text.
China, India, and Turkey are among the biggest buyers of Russian energy exports.
The senators have said the bill aims to "hold China accountable for propping up Putin's war machine by buying cheap Russian oil from the shadow fleet" -- hundreds of often aging vessels of opaque ownership that Moscow uses to evade Western sanctions on its most lucrative product. Oil exports account for about a third of Russia's federal budget revenue.
Shadow Fleet
Primary and secondary sanctions on Russian banks would be a major step to hamper the country's economy, Ziemba said.
Whereas primary sanctions forbid US entities from transacting with Russian banks, secondary sanctions would penalize foreign financial institutions that do business with Russian banks, cutting them off from the US dollar and financial system. Chinese financial institutions are among the foreign firms still working with Russian banks.
Still, Ziemba said the bill could be softened as it is taken up in congressional committees. She also said she did not see the tariffs on third countries as timely, considering the blowback the Trump administration is dealing with following its announcement in April of sweeping, global tariffs.
The bipartisan bill may be more about showing US resolve to Putin, Ziemba said. More than 80 of the 100 senators have co-sponsored it, demonstrating overwhelming support in the upper chamber for action against Russian aggression.
It may also be aimed at enshrining sanctions into law. Some of the sanctions it would impose had already been put into force by Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden.
"The incremental effect [of the bill] might not be that great in the near term, and would perhaps be more impactful as a means of making it more difficult for the Trump administration or any administration to lift sanctions in the future," Ziemba said.
Trump has not stated whether he would support the Senate bill. In response to questions about the initiative, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump "has been clear he wants to see a negotiated peace deal" and "has also smartly kept all options on the table," The New York Times reported, quoting a statement.
While critics of Trump charge he is hesitant to impose new financial punishments on Russia because he highly values his relationship with Putin, Ziemba said there are concerns at play that go beyond US-Russian ties and the war in Ukraine.
"There's a belief in the Trump administration that too much use of financial sanctions could hurt the dollar's role in global trade and push countries to build evasive infrastructure that might be damaging to US interests and security," she said.
'Wishful Thinking'
A prime example: the oil price cap. Imposed by the United States and the European Union in 2022 to limit Russia's revenue for the war on Ukraine while keeping global energy markets stable, it has been undermined by the shadow fleet of ships that move Russian oil outside Western scrutiny.
To punish Russia for scuttling peace talks, the G7 has proposed lowering the oil price cap from $60 a barrel to $50. The Financial Times reported this week that the Trump administration blocked the proposal. That decision may reflect Trump's preference to hold off on new Russia sanctions for the time being, but it is also possible that the US president doesn't like the price cap because it benefits US competitors like China and India, Ziemba said.
She also said there is little point in the G7 lowering the price cap if its members do not widen sanctions against the shadow fleet.
Ramping up sanctions on Russia's oil industry, including the shadow fleet, could deliver "a very tangible blow to Putin" if he drags his feet on peace negotiations, Leon Aron, a senior fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, told RFE/RL in an interview earlier this month. "This may move him toward at least contemplating peace seriously."
Newt Gingrich, a Republican who was speaker of the House of Representatives in 1995-99, said the Trump administration should not just focus on economic sanctions. He called for the United States to "dramatically" increase the quality and quantity of military aid to Ukraine.
"Putin will only stop if he has no choice. Any other strategy is wishful thinking which will extend the war and cost more innocent lives," Gingrich said in a post on X.
What steps Trump takes to press Putin, if any, may become clearer in June.
"We're going to find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not, and if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently," Trump told reporters at the White House on May 28. "But it will take about a week and a half, two weeks."
