Donald Trump shortens 50-day deadline for Russia to reach ceasefire

Donald Trump has shortened his 50-day deadline for Russia to reach a ceasefire with Ukraine to 10-12 days as he promises aid for Gaza in his meeting with British PM Keir Starmer

Donald Trump meets with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and wife Victoria Starmer at Trump Turnberry golf club in Turnberry, Scotland.

Donald Trump has shortened his deadline for Vladimir Putin to reach a ceasefire deal with Ukraine, giving the Russian leader another “10 or 12 days” before the US applies greater economic pressure on Moscow through a combination of sanctions and tariffs.

The US President had previously given Russia a deadline of 50 days, a time frame he set on July 14 in a meeting with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte in the White House Oval Office during which he expressed disappointment and frustration at Putin’s conduct of the war in Eastern Europe.

Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump at Trump International Golf Links.

Hosting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at his Turnberry resort on the west coast of Scotland one day after striking a fresh trade deal with the EU, Mr Trump and Sir Keir held a sprawling press conference canvassing the war between Russia and Ukraine, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the future of US tariff policy – including on pharmaceuticals – as well as Mr Trump’s hope for a US Federal Reserve rate cut.

The President said his administration would help funnel more aid into Gaza, and Sir Keir said it was essential to press forward with a ceasefire to end the conflict between Hamas and Israel. The British leader said the “images of starving children in particular are revolting. And there’s a sense of revulsion in the British public at what they’re seeing”.

“We need to galvanise other countries in support of getting that aid in,” Sir Keir said. “And, yes, that does involve putting pressure on Israel. Because it absolutely is a humanitarian catastrophe now.”

Mr Trump explained that he was bringing forward his 50-day deadline with Russia because there was simply “no reason in waiting” and a breakthrough had proved elusive. The US President had initially promised to end the conflict in Eastern Europe within 24 hours, but has so far been unable to strike a deal with Putin.

“I want to be generous but we just don’t see any progress being made,” he said. “I’m going to make a new deadline of 10 or 12 days from today.

“We’re going to do secondary sanctions unless we make a deal. We might make a deal. I don’t know. We’ve done so many peace deals. This is the one I started out with. President Putin called me. He wanted to know if I could help him with Iran. I said, ‘no, I don’t need your help with Iran. I need your help with Russia’. And so that’s the one deal that continues to linger.

Donald Trump greets UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and wife Victoria Starmer as they arrive for a meeting between the two leaders at the Trump Turnberry Golf Courses, in Turnberry, southwest Scotland.

“He’s got to make a deal. Too many people are dying. Yeah, I’d say 10 to 12 days. I’ll announce it probably tonight or tomorrow. But there’s no reason to wait. If you know what the answer’s going to be, why wait? And it would be sanctions and maybe tariffs, secondary tariffs.”

However, Mr Trump refused to say that the Russian leader had been lying to him. “All I know is that we’d have a good talk and it seemed on, let’s say three occasions, it seemed that we were going to have a ceasefire and maybe peace,” he said.

“And all of sudden missiles are flying into Kyiv and other places. And I’d say ‘what’s that all about? I spoke to you three or four hours ago and it looked like we were on our way’. And I’d say ‘forget it’ … This has happened on too many occasions.”

The US President provided an assurance that America would also help set up food centres to address the starvation crisis in Gaza, declaring Israel needed to bear greater responsibility.

“We want to get the children fed. We made a contribution. We could go $US60m ($92.1m) – all going into food,” Mr Trump said. “We only hope the food goes to the people that need it. So much, as you know, when you do something there it gets taken by Hamas … and we are prepared to help. We want to help. It’s a terrible situation … We have to get the kids fed.

“We’re going to set up food centres. And we’re going to do it in conjunction with some very good people and we’re going to supply funds. We’re going to set up food centres where the people can walk in. And no boundaries. We’re not going to have fences. They see the food from 30, you would say, yards away, and they see the food. It’s all there but nobody’s at it because they have fences set up.

The Marine One helicopter over Donald Trump’s Turnberry. He is visiting Scotland in a trip that is part-vacation, part-work.

“Israel has a lot of responsibility. I think Israel can do a lot.”

However, Mr Trump said a deal to end the fighting would be difficult. “I always said when you get down to the final 10 or 20 (hostages), you’re not going to be able to make a deal with these people because they use them as a shield. And when they give them up, they no longer have a shield,” the President said.

“Hamas has become very difficult to deal with in the last couple of days because they don’t want to give up these last 20 (hostages) ’cause they think as long as we have them they have protection. But I don’t think it can work that way, so I’m speaking to Bibi Netanyahu and we are coming up with various plans.

“If they didn’t have the hostages things would go very quickly.”

Sir Keir said the position of the UK was that Hamas must “play absolutely no part in any future government in Palestine and in Gaza”.

Addressing the next phase of his trade policy, Mr Trump said he would be “announcing our (tariffs on) pharmaceuticals sometime in the very near future. We have a very big plan on pharmaceuticals. We want to bring a lot of the pharmaceuticals back to America where they should be”.

“If you look at Covid, it sort of taught us a lesson,” he said. “We were getting our pharmaceuticals from other countries. We almost didn’t make any. We used to make them ourselves.”

The President also expressed hope that the Federal Reserve would cut rates at its meeting on Wednesday, having repeatedly called on central bank chairman Jerome Powell to ease monetary policy.

“I think he has to (cut rates),” Mr Trump said. “I’m not going to say anything bad. We’re doing so well, even without the rate cut. With the rate cut it would be better. It affects our housing a little bit. We should be three points lower. Each point is $360bn … Each point, one point of cut, is the equivalent on $360bn in savings. That’s big stuff.”