US President Donald Trump said his decision to suspend some sanctions on Russia was meant to keep Moscow engaged in negotiations over the war in Ukraine.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said he was negotiating peace between Russia and Ukraine and did not want to take action that would push Russia away from the bargaining table, the BBC reported. His statement provides a direct public rationale for the sanctions pause, announced amid worsening relations between Washington and Kyiv.
Trump issued the executive order on Friday, two days before the measures were due to take effect. The sanctions had been passed by Congress and signed into law in September; the order said suspending some of them was in the US national interest, according to an earlier BBC report.
The law gave Trump authority to impose tariffs of up to 100% on imports from the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas, with China and India identified as the most significant. It also included sanctions targeting senior Russian figures, Russian financial institutions and vessels used to circumvent embargoes, the earlier report said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the suspension would be a 60-day pause while the administration assessed possible effects on the US and global economy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the sanctions could have applied effective pressure on Russia to end the war. Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev welcomed Trump’s order and said the measures would have caused serious harm to the US and global market.
Trump’s latest comments frame the pause as part of his stated effort to preserve a negotiating channel, rather than as a change to the sanctions law itself.