Trump Slams Biden’s Russia Sanctions as Weak, Insignificant

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday slammed President Biden’s proposed sanctions to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine as ineffective.

“The weak sanctions are insignificant relative to taking over a country and a massive piece of strategically located land,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.

“If properly handled, there was absolutely no reason that the situation currently happening in Ukraine should have happened at all,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s remarks come as members of both parties are urging Mr. Biden to follow through with his repeated threats to impose sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine.

On Monday, Mr. Biden issued sanctions prohibiting U.S. citizens and businesses from trading, investing in and financing the two territories in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.

Those sanctions are far from the “swift and severe” economic sanctions the administration has vowed to impose if Russia escalated its aggression against Ukraine.

That aggression stepped up significantly Monday after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow would recognize the two territories’ independence.

The Russian-controlled separatists’ territories, which are located in Ukraine’s Donbas region, are the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

Mr. Trump said Mr. Putin would not have taken such an action during his administration, noting that rising oil prices across the globe have benefited Russia. The former president said Mr. Biden’s energy policies have moved the U.S. away from being energy independent, increasing reliance on overseas oil producers.

“I know Vladimir Putin very well, and he would have never done during the Trump administration what he is doing now, no way!” the Trump statement said.

Russia has become very rich during the Biden administration with oil prices doubling and soon to be tripling and quadrupling,” Mr. Trump said. “Now it has begun, oil prices are going higher and higher and Putin is not only getting what he always wanted, but getting, because of the oil and gas surge, richer and richer.”

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