His view contrasts with skepticism from officials in Brussels and politicians in European capitals, some of whom dismissed Trump\u2019s statements that Ukraine could \u201cwin\u201d back all its territory from Russia as hollow words.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Stubb has more credibility than most when it comes to interpreting Trump, having built a rapport with the American president while playing golf, a sport they both love. Asked what sort of stick Trump would choose to hit Putin with, Stubb quipped that it might be a \u201cdriver.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump is working if not around the clock, then every day with trying to end the war,\u201d Stubb said. \u201cHe has 14 clubs in his bag.\u201d <\/p>\n
The options range from tighter sanctions, including secondary sanctions, to higher tariffs and even making greater use of the U.S. military\u2019s arsenal of weapons that can penetrate deep into Russian territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have to read \u2018The Art of [the] Deal\u2019 to understand the way in which President Trump negotiates,\u201d Stubb said. \u201cIt\u2019s unconventional but it is quite results-oriented \u2026 If Putin after [meeting Trump for an Aug. 15 summit in] Alaska basically continues to kill civilians in Ukraine, President Trump is justifiably going to react.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Describing himself as \u201ca realistic optimist,\u201d Stubb urged Ukraine\u2019s supporters to stay patient. \u201cI have had the possibility to work with President Trump quite closely over the past few months,\u201d he said. \u201cPerhaps optimism is sometimes an intuition, but I think the facts on the ground right now speak that we are going in a better direction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His view contrasts with skepticism from officials in Brussels and politicians in European capitals, some of whom dismissed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[766,6505,6659,32,769,2190,837,839,2597,332,2663,479,657,49,1781,771,335,1116],"class_list":{"0":"post-463866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-alexander-stubb","9":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","10":"tag-crisis","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-finland","13":"tag-hungary","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-middle-east","16":"tag-military","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-sanctions","19":"tag-tariffs","20":"tag-ukraine","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-viktor-orban","23":"tag-war","24":"tag-war-in-ukraine","25":"tag-weapons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115294950146709787","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}