President Trump recently announced that he was considering hitting Russian dictator Vladimir Putin where the tyrant will notice: his pocketbook. For months, the president and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, have been in active talks to end Putin’s war. For its part, Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire and has repeatedly invited Putin to the negotiating table. Instead of working toward peace, Russia escalated the violence.

Putin Is Playing With Fire

For the past month, Putin has bombed one Ukrainian residential neighborhood after another – including the largest-ever attack on Ukraine’s capital city. Russian shells and missiles have killed innocent, non-combatant civilians as they enjoyed a playground, ran errands, and returned home from Palm Sunday worship services.

President Trump has condemned the bombings, even warning that Putin is “playing with fire!” He has offered Russia every chance to put down its weapons, but his patience is wearing thin. The president recently told a group of reporters, “I’m not happy with what Putin is doing. He’s killing a lot of people.”

Like the other power-hungry thugs of history, Putin does not care how many civilians he kills. However, he does need an income stream to continue his campaign of terror. President Trump is exactly right to consider increasing the pressure on Putin by making it fiscally unbearable for Russia to continue its war.

United States Can Drain Putin’s Coffers

The United States is able to inflict financial pain on Putin because our economy is the largest in the world. We regularly use economic penalties, otherwise known as sanctions, to box out bad actors from American-run trading systems.

Sanctions limit access to banks and payment technology, and they keep people or groups from doing business in certain countries. These penalties are one tool America can use to confront a dictator like Putin. It is difficult to pay for a war if you cannot buy and sell with other countries.

U.S. Senate Ready To Bankrupt Putin

In the U.S. Senate, my colleagues and I have been building support for legislation that could enact the sanctions President Trump is considering. At this point, more than 80 of 100 senators have publicly supported a bill that would punish other countries for purchasing Russian oil and gas. Putin relies on his energy sales to fund his war machine. Our legislation would impose a 500 percent tariff on anyone who buys from him. In concrete terms, China would be unable to purchase oil from Russia and still afford to sell anything to the United States. I urge U.S. Senate leadership to bring this bill up for a vote soon.

Clearly, Putin is unfazed by the human suffering inflicted by his war crimes. I expect he will pay attention if Moscow’s biggest customers stop using its oil and gas. The Russian economy has been in a perilous state for many months. Inflation remains high, the workforce is shrinking, and existing sanctions are limiting growth. Ratcheting up the pressure could be enough to make Putin take peace talks seriously.

I join President Trump in condemning the outrageous Russian attacks on civilians. The entire war is a crime, and Putin’s recent atrocities take Russia to a new low. Congress and the White House can work together – right now – to push the despot to relent.