US President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to impose a secondary 100 per cent tariff on countries that import oil, gas and uranium from Russia, saying he was “very unhappy” with Moscow’s intransigence in finding an end to the war with Ukraine.
He gave a 50-day deadline for the punitive tariff to take effect if Russia did not make a peace deal with Ukraine, while speaking to reporters with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House.
“We’re very, very unhappy with them, and we’re going to be doing very severe tariffs. If we don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100 per cent, you’d call them secondary tariffs”, he said.
The tariff is directed against Russia, but if it comes into force, India, which is racing to finalise a bilateral trade agreement with the US, would be a collateral victim of the Washington-Moscow standoff.
If China and India can be forced to stop buying energy from Russia, Washington expects it would impact Moscow’s war machine by squeezing the funds available to it.
It could also motivate China, in particular, to put pressure on Russia to make a peace deal, in the US reckoning.
Trump said he supported a proposed bill that would impose a 500 per cent tariff on countries buying energy products from Russia.
But, he said, “I’m not sure we need it” since he can impose the punitive tariff by himself.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham proposed the 500 per cent bill, which has 85 co-sponsors, including many Democrats.
Trump added, “It’s certainly good that they’re doing it.”
Graham held off introducing the bill till he got a go-ahead from Trump.
Graham is working with House Speaker Mike Johnson, and it “is probably going to pass very easily” with some “little tweaks”, Trump said.
“They’ve actually crafted a pretty good piece of legislation,” he said. Because of the tariff-imposing powers he has exercised, he said he does not need legislation “because I don’t want them to waste their time.”
India has defended the oil purchase from Russia because it is needed for the development of the country, as well as helping stabilise international oil prices.
India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in December that Russia’s oil “is not necessarily cheap.”
Given the tight oil market, he said, “India did the entire world a favour by buying Russian oil because if we had not done so, the global oil prices would have skyrocketed to $200 a barrel.
Trump also said he would impose “very severe tariffs” on Russia.
Expressing his anger at Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, he said, “My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night.”
“I felt we had a deal about four times″ between Russia and Ukraine, “but it just kept going on and on”, said Trump, who tried to broker a deal.
He also announced that the US will send Patriot missiles and other arms to Ukraine.
