U.S. President Donald Trump has called on the EU to impose tariffs of up to 100% on China and India over their imports of Russian oil in an attempt to force Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to sit down for genuine peace talks for Ukraine.
President Trump told EU diplomats when he dialed into a meeting in Washington on Tuesday that the U.S. is willing to impose massive tariffs on India and China, but only if the EU agrees to do the same, the Financial Times reported, citing officials with knowledge of the matter.
“We’re ready to go, ready to go right now, but we’re only going to do this if our European partners step up with us,” a U.S. official told FT.
President Trump and the White House appear to be increasingly frustrated with Putin’s lack of any engagement on peace despite the lapse of a U.S. deadline, and with the increasingly aggressive Russian attacks on Ukraine.
The idea of the massive tariffs on China and India would be to force them to stop buying Russian oil, according to U.S. officials.
However, the EU could face challenges in agreeing unanimously on such tariffs. First, that’s not the typical EU policy and second, some EU member states such as Hungary and Slovakia have opposed sanctions on Russian energy unless they obtain some concessions or guarantees.
The EU is weighing options to impose fresh sanctions on Russia’s oil industry and exports by sanctioning major energy firms and erecting more barriers to Russian oil trade, sources with knowledge of the plans told Bloomberg earlier this week.
EU officials are discussing this week in Washington potential coordinated joint EU-U.S. sanctions on Russia to force Putin to negotiations on peace in Ukraine, according to Bloomberg’s sources.
On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, told NBC News the United States is open to partnering with Europe to impose more sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil to try to “collapse” the Russian economy.
“We are prepared to increase pressure on Russia, but we need our European partners to follow us,” Bessent said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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