India, China, Brazil Could Be Hit Hard For Trading With Russia: NATO Secretary Rutte

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned on Wednesday that countries such as Brazil, China and India could be hit very hard by secondary sanctions for continuing to do business with Russia, Reuters reported.

His statement comes a day after President Donald Trump announced new weapons for Ukraine and threatened to impose secondary tariffs of 100% on the buyers of Russian exports unless there is a peace deal in 50 days.

During his meeting with senators in the US Congress, Rutte urged the three nations to persuade Putin to take the peace deal with Ukraine "seriously."

"My encouragement to these three countries, particularly, is: if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this because this might hit you very hard," Reuters quoted Rutte as telling reporters.

"So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks, because otherwise, this will slam back on Brazil, on India, and on China in a massive way," Rutte stated.

The NATO Secretary further added that Europe would find the money in order to ensure that Ukraine is in the best position during peace negotiations and under the agreement with US PresidentTrump, the US would now "massively" supply Ukraine with weapons "not just air defense, also missiles, also ammunition paid for by the Europeans."

On asking whether Ukraine would get long-range missiles, Rutte said: "It is both defensive and offensive. So there are all kinds of weapons, but we have not discussed details yesterday with the president. This is really being worked through now by the Pentagon, by the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, together with the Ukrainians."

Ukraine had been receiving US weapons funded by resources left from Biden's administration. Trump had resisted seeking additional funds, arguing it might harden Putin's resolve and reduce chances of ending the conflict. However, on Sunday, Trump announced that the United States will provide additional Patriot air-defence systems to Ukraine.

Trump's attempts to bring peace between two warring nations have failed to come into fruition, so far.