Tom Keatinge, the founding director of the Centre for Finance and Security (CFS) at the defence thinktank Rusi, said: “The US has been more effective in 24 hours than the EU has been in the last six months. Trump is willing to say what many others are too timid or too diplomatic to say out loud. For the longest time people have been calling for Trump to pull out the sanctions hammer. It could be very significant.”