President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the US is prepared to impose fresh energy sanctions on Russia, but only if all NATO nations cease purchasing Russian oil and implement similar measures.
"I am ready to do major sanctions on Russia when all NATO nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO nations stop buying oil from Russia," Trump said in a social media post.
In recent weeks, the US has stepped up pressure on NATO countries to tighten energy sanctions on Russia in a bid to help end its war with Ukraine - a conflict Trump has struggled to bring to a close despite repeated threats of harsher penalties on Moscow and its partners.
Trump has also faced criticism at home for repeatedly setting two-week deadlines for Russia to de-escalate and allowing them to pass without concrete action.
An August Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 54% of Americans, including one in five of Trump's Republicans, believe the president is too closely aligned with Russia.
"The EU has engaged — and will continue to engage — with all relevant global partners in the context of its sanctions against Russia, and enforcement of same," a spokesperson for the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said in a statement on Saturday.
EU President Ursula von der Leyen said this week in her State of the Union address that any new sanctions package would be in line with EU rules, including "the long-held principle that our sanctions do not apply extra-territorially."
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