Former White House national security adviser John Bolton brushed off President Trump’s recent threat to impose sanctions on Russia over its continued strikes in Ukraine as peace talks are underway.
In an appearance Friday on CNN, Bolton was asked to weigh in on the issue and how it changes the narrative after Trump had seemingly moved closer to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Invoking his latest spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office and criticism he’s lavished on the war-torn country and its leader, the former Trump official painted the president’s threat on Russia as “hollow.”
“He did it simply to try and show some kind of balance, given the things he had said about Zelensky and the Ukrainians,” Bolton told host Anderson Cooper on CNN’s “AC360.”
“I think Putin completely understood that that threat was totally hollow,” he added.
Trump signaled on Friday that he was weighing additional sanctions and tariffs on Russia in an attempt to bring Moscow to the negotiation table to end the three-year-long war in Eastern Europe. In his warning, the president claimed Putin’s military was “pounding” Ukraine on the battlefield.
In response, he said large scale banking sanctions and tariffs could be imposed until a ceasefire is reached.
“To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Bolton, who also previously served as U.N. ambassador, questioned the strength of the proposed sanctions and taxes, saying “I don’t understand it.”
“Last year, the only year we have full statistics, were a little bit less than $3 billion, which is trivial compared to the total volume of U.S. trade with the rest of the world,” he said in the interview.
“And in fact, in 2021, in other words, the last full year before Russia’s invasion in 2022, they were about $30 billion,” Bolton continued “So over this period of time since the invasion, U.S. imports from Russia have already shrunk 90 percent.”
He added, “So, the tariff thing is effectively meaningless. Banking sanctions, you know, if there are banking sanctions we haven’t imposed on Russia, I’d like to know why not?”
Trump administration officials also confirmed Wednesday that the White House paused intelligence-sharing with Ukraine as part of a broader review of assistance to Kyiv, which has been frozen.
Asked how Ukraine can function without such support, Bolton called the move “despicable” and said Zelensky will likely have to look to other NATO members for support.
“This is all part of how Trump does business. It’s all personal. I know this is hard to understand that people think there’s some policy behind it, but [there’s] not,” he said, adding that “Trump believes that U.S. relations with other countries are embodied in his personal relations with the foreign heads of state.”
“He thinks Vladimir Putin is his friend. He’s never liked Zelensky, not since the famous perfect phone call in 2019. And this is what you’re getting,” Bolton continued, calling it a “huge mistake” for the U.S.
He also claimed the pause will not make Russia more eager to come to the table, placing the blame on Trump’s policies that he said are about abandoning Ukraine and taking Russia’s side.
Bolton countered, “Why should they negotiate when Trump gives them everything they want?”
Trump’s threat of sanctions comes just days before members of his administration are set to meet with Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia to discuss a path toward ending the war. The same administration officials had met with their Russian counterparts in Riyadh last month.
A minerals deal between the U.S. and Ukraine — which includes an exchange of critical minerals for security guarantees against Russia — is still in limbo, after the testy White House exchange earlier this month. Zelensky and Trump have signaled that an agreement is still possible.
