President Trump met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House on Wednesday, shortly after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced new sanctions on Russia’s biggest oil exporters.

The move marked the Trump administration’s most significant action yet in its efforts to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to his war in Ukraine.

Trump also explained why he called off a planned meeting with Putin and decided against supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, while also touching on his military campaign against South American drug cartels and his potential meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during an upcoming trip to Asia.

Here are the key takeaways from the meeting.

‘It was time’ for Russia sanctions

The Treasury Department announced Wednesday afternoon it was hitting Russia’s two largest oil companies, Open Joint Stock Company Rosneft Oil Co. and Lukoil OAO, with sanctions.

“I just felt it was time. We waited a long time,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, when asked about the move.

“It’s a very big day in terms of what we’re doing,” he added. “These are tremendous sanctions. They’re big, these are against their two big oil companies and we hope they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled. We just answered having to do with various forms of missiles and everything else that we’re looking at, but we don’t think that’s going to be necessary.”

Trump has long threatened sanctions against Russia if Putin refuses to move toward a peace deal. Republicans in the Senate have been anxious to move their own Russia sanctions package, but Trump has yet to give the green light for a floor vote.

Trump said he would like to see Russia agree to end the war along the current front lines and “just go home.”

Putin meeting ‘didn't feel right'

The sanctions announcement........

© The Hill