UPDATES WITH FURTHER REMARKS BY BESSENT, REVISIONS THROUGHOUT
By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) - US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that the Trump administration would tighten sanctions on Russia, remarks that came soon before Washington unveiled new measures following the abrupt cancellation of a planned Trump-Putin meeting.
"We are going to announce either after the close this afternoon, or first thing tomorrow morning, a substantial pickup in Russia sanctions," Bessent told reporters at the White House.
He was referring to the close of the US stock market at 4 pm Eastern Time (2000GMT). Details on the sanctions were not immediately available.
"President Putin has not come to the table in an honest and forthright manner, as we hoped. There were talks in Alaska, President Trump walked away when he realized that things were not moving forward," he later said during an interview with FOX News.
"This will be one of the largest sanctions that we have done against the Russian Federation," he said in remarks that were soon followed by a Treasury announcement of sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.
The announcement came just one day after a White House official confirmed that a second planned meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was put on hold. Trump had said on Oct. 16 that the meeting would take place within two weeks, and while the cause for the about-face was not immediately known, it came in the wake of the Kremlin's rejection of an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine sought by the US president.
Trump sat down with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, with the situation in Ukraine a major topic of discussion.