Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday commended President Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week.
“Alaska was a show of force by President Trump. He invited President Putin to land that the Russians used to own. He displayed a huge amount of military hardware and then did a flyover,” Bessent said during a Tuesday morning appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“It was kind of like inviting your uncontrollable neighbor to your house and showing him your gun case,” he added.
The Treasury secretary said the swift follow-up meeting Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House signaled strong strides toward peace between Russia and Ukraine.
“We had a very good meeting with him in and his team in the Oval [Office] for about an hour and a half, and then we met with the European leaders who were an incredible group to have in the White House, all led by President Trump,” Bessent said.
“And yes, the culmination of that was a call with President Putin, and my strong belief is that there will be a bilateral meeting between President Putin and President Zelensky,” he continued. “And that’s the only way to end this conflict, is to get the two sides talking.”
The Kremlin’s strikes on Ukraine have continued amid peace negotiations as Russian leaders have urged NATO not to deploy forces in eastern Europe.
On Monday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said troops from NATO member nations “could lead to an uncontrollable escalation of the conflict with unpredictable consequences.”
Some world leaders have maintained that the Trump-Putin summit benefitted Moscow more than the U.S.
Former British Ambassador to Russia Laurie Bristow said the bilateral meeting “produced nothing for Mr. Trump and gave Mr. Putin most of what he was looking for,” according to The Associated Press, while Zelensky pegged the meeting as a photo-op.
Still, Bessent said economic pressures on Moscow will force the more than three-year war to end.
“I think the sense is that both sides are ready for this terrible conflict to end, and one of the ways to make President Putin want it to end is on the economic side,” he told CNBC on Tuesday.
“The Russian economy has 20 percent plus inflation. Right now, it is a war economy. I think more than 25 percent of the GDP [gross domestic product] is coming from the military buildup. So, you know, it’s a very imbalanced economy,” he continued.