The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, has a talent for asking the question everyone else is avoiding.
In a closed-door meeting at the G7 foreign ministers’ summit in France on March 27, she put one directly to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, pressing him on whether Washington intended to ramp up the pressure on Russia, including by tightening sanctions on its oil revenues. “A year has passed and Russia hasn’t moved,” she said, according to a report in Axios. “When is your patience going to run out?” To which Rubio replied, “If you think you can do it better, go ahead. We will step aside.”
Three days later, Rubio’s boss, President Donald Trump, gave a more straightforward answer to Kallas’ query. A sanctioned Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude was heading for Cuba, straight through a blockade Washington had enforced for months. Asked whether he objected, the U.S. president told reporters, “I have no problem whether it’s Russia or not.”