New York: US President Donald Trump said he is asking Republican leaders to put on hold legislation to impose crippling penalties on countries buying Russian oil, as he prepares to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in a bid to end the Ukraine war.

Following a conversation with Putin, Trump said on Thursday that "It may not be perfect timing" for the legislation with a 500 per cent punitive tariff that Senate Republican Party leader John Thune was planning to move ahead with.

"I'm going to speak to him and the [House] speaker, Mike Johnson", he told reporters, "and I'll tell them about this, and we'll make the right determination", stating that they had not known about his diplomatic reboot with Putin to end the war. 

Earlier, Thune said the "time has come" to move ahead with legislation that would put a 500 per cent tariff on countries buying Russian oil, significantly higher than the existing 25 per cent tariff which Trump has imposed on India.

He said that the legislation, formulated with another Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, had bipartisan support. Graham has said that 84 other senators supported the bill, and 100 members backed a similar one in the House of Representatives.

The proposed legislation gives Trump discretion on its implementation, but it was meant to be applied uniformly to all countries. This may come at a cost for Washington's diplomacy as the European Union, China, and Turkiye also import energy from Russia. Even the US had a $5.2 billion trade with Russia and ran up a $2.4 billion deficit.

"We'll see what happens", Trump said of the upcoming meeting with Putin in Budapest within the next two weeks. "This may be such a productive call that we're going to end up [with peace]. We want to get peace", he said.

Trump sounded optimistic about the prospects of peace in Ukraine after his talk with Putin. They agreed to meet again following their August summit in Alaska, which did not make headway.

Trump has singled out India with the punitive Russian oil tariff, while sparing other Moscow customers. He said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured him that he would wind down Russian oil purchases.

The External Affairs Ministry said, "The current Administration has shown interest in deepening energy cooperation with India. Discussions are ongoing," but did not verify Trump's claims.