Donald Trump growing impatient with Russia, says Finnish President Alexander Stubb

The package could specifically target foreign firms that trade in Russian energy, aligning with Trump’s broader tariff strategy. An earlier draft of the bill even considered 500% tariffs on goods from countries dealing in Russian energy — a sweeping move that echoes Trump’s aggressive trade tactics in the past.

Stubb stressed that merely threatening sanctions, even if not immediately enforced, could still serve as a powerful diplomatic lever.

Russia ‘no longer a great power,’ Stubb tells Trump

Stubb disclosed details of a recent conversation with Trump in which he tried to shift the US leader’s perception of Russia’s power. “It is smaller than Italy, slightly larger than Spain economically,” he said. “Militarily, it wanted to deny the independent sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine three years ago. It has advanced less than one percentage point this year, its interest rate is over 20%, and its reserves are out.”

He added, “It is not a country which can be seen as a big power anymore.”

Stubb said his goal is to persuade the American administration to view free trade and collective defense as more effective than transactional diplomacy. “Trump’s worldview is not far from the 19th-century concert of powers… We have to convince the US that we are security providers, not consumers.”

Stubb emphasised that any negotiations with Putin must include Ukraine and not bypass President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “At the top level, we should not go solo,” he said, noting that any European outreach to Moscow should be coordinated through the E3 leadership of Britain, France, and Germany.

(With inputs from The Guardian)