US President Donald Trump believes that the Ukrainian conflict can be resolved soon. He said this in an interview with CBS News, broadcast on November 2.
“Yes, I think we'll get there“, he replied when asked if he believed that the conflict could be resolved within “a few months“.
In this regard, Trump expressed confidence that the Russian leadership wants “to do business with the United States“.
“We've had nine wars on this planet. I've stopped eight of them. There's only one left – "Russian-Ukrainian," Trump said.
Trump believes that expanding trade and economic ties between Russia and the United States would be a wonderful development.
He expressed confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin would like to increase trade between Russia and the United States. "I think he would. I think he would like to come and trade with us. And he would like to make a lot of money for Russia," the American president added. "And I think that's wonderful," he stressed, referring to this possibility.
The American leader was also asked why the US approach of dictating terms to other countries by threatening to impose tariffs on their products "doesn't work" with Russia. "I think it works with Putin," Trump replied. “The reason I approached him differently is that we don't do much business with Russia“, he added. The US leader stressed that Russia does not buy significant volumes of goods from the US, calling it stupid.
Trump is not involved in the European Union's discussions on the possible confiscation of frozen Russian assets. The US leader made the statement on November 2 while talking to reporters on board his plane en route from Palm Beach, Florida, to Washington.
“I am not involved in that. As far as I understand, Europe and Russia are having discussions. I am not involved in those discussions“, the US prime minister said. He was commenting on the fate of Russian assets frozen in the West. In Florida, Trump spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate near Palm Beach.
On October 23, participants in the EU summit in Brussels failed to reach an agreement on the use of Russian assets. The same day, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that any EU initiatives to seize Russian assets would inevitably lead to a "painful reaction".