United States President Donald Trump vowed to impose hefty financial penalties on Russian crude oil imports if Moscow does not sign up to a ceasefire in Ukraine within the next month.
Speaking in an interview with NBC, Trump said he was “very angry” and “pissed off” after Russian leader Vladimir Putin called for the ousting of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by a United Nations-backed transitional government.
“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” the American president said.
“That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25 percent tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil,” Trump said.
The European Union has imposed an embargo on seaborne shipments of Russian oil in the wake of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but a number of EU member countries, including Hungary and Slovakia, continue to buy it via pipeline.
Meanwhile, other NATO allies like Turkey, as well as countries like China and India, have stepped up their purchases of crude from Russia. Petrol, diesel and jet fuel refined from Russian oil in third countries is then sold around the world, including in the U.S. and Europe.
The intervention from Trump flies in the face of recent talk of a burgeoning thaw in Russia-U.S. relations, after the White House indicated it was prepared to help ease sanctions on Moscow in exchange for a ceasefire in the Black Sea. European countries have reacted furiously to the idea that they could return to buying Russian fossil fuels for anything short of a lasting and comprehensive peace — and justice for the Ukrainians.
Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio played down the prospects of a high-level dialogue to end the war, saying that “there’s a lot of work to be done” and “I think you have to make more progress on a technical level.”
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