US presidential candidate Donald Trump has expressed skepticism over sanctions but dodged the question of whether he would lift the restrictions against Moscow as part of his plan to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
In an interview with Bloomberg recorded on June 25 and published in full on Tuesday, Trump was asked if he had “thought at all about easing or eliminating the sanctions on Russia.”
“Yeah. So what we’re doing with sanctions is we’re forcing everyone away from us. So, I don’t love sanctions. I found them very useful with Iran, but I didn’t even need sanctions with Iran so much. I told China that, and Russia is in a similar position,” Trump said, without revealing whether his proposed deal to end the conflict would involve lifting sanctions.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin and I got along very well, with our relationship. We were never in danger of a war. He would have never gotten into Ukraine,” Trump said at another point in the interview.
Despite his skepticism, during his term in office, Trump did not ease the Obama-era sanctions on Moscow over Crimea and targeted Russia with extra restrictions to delay the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to the EU.
During his presidency, Trump also engaged in a heated tariff war with China, which he again praised as a big success, while accusing “grossly incompetent” President Joe Biden of bringing Russia and China closer together.
“Biden is a stupid person. He’s forced Russia and China to get married. They’re married. Then they took in their little cousin, Iran, and then they took in North Korea. They don’t need anybody else,” the Republican presidential candidate claimed.
“It’s a very, very dangerous world. And I actually worry about the five months that we have left. Right, I think you could end up in a World War III,” Trump said two days before his first debate with Biden – and two weeks before he miraculously survived an assassination attempt.