Silicon Bites #86 - Trump’s Ultimatum to Putin: End Your Pointless War Now or Face Crippling Tariffs

“It's time to make a deal.” Announces incoming President of the US, Donald Trump. If he does not end Russia’s war against Ukraine war soon, Trump implies that Putin will face punitive tariffs and sanctions, on top of those already imposed. Trump also says he’ll ask NATO allies to raise defence spending to 5 percent of GDP, which is far beyond the current spend, and even higher than current US expenditure on defence. This would be a transformational change to many societies, with implications that I think he can hardly grasp. ---------- At relatively short notice, we're organising two events in Ukraine in the last week of January. Lviv (part 2) and Kyiv. The event we ran in August 2023 was a huge success, and had a great impact. Now our aim is even more ambitious. Two cities. Two events. Multiple panels consisting of the best experts, and all filmed in high definition for the channel. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras But it costs. Last time the overall cost was £3,500 for Live in Lviv, and we covered 80% of this through ticket sales. This time the costs are higher, and there's less opportunity to sell tickets at the available venues and studios, so I'm creating a campaign to raise £5,000 to make this trip a reality. We also have a much more ambitious programme to film interviews around Kyiv and Lviv for the channel. This project will have an impact, so please help if you can. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras ---------- Trump did not attend the World Economic Forum in Davos in person, but via a video link announced he would bring down the cost of oil, because "if the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately. It's time to end it." He added. This comes a day after he threatened massive tariffs and sanctions on Russian exports if Putin fails to make a deal to end the conflict. Not after 24 hours, but within the first 100 days of Trump taking office. For perhaps the first time, Trump blamed Vladimir Putin for the fact the war has not ended. Up until now he has not directly spoken in negative terms about the Russian president, sparking a belief against some of his detractors that he may be a Russian asset. But does Trump now see an opportunity in weakening of even beating Putin? ---------- SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISER A project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's front-line towns. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube’s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.