Why did Russia escape Trump’s tariffs?
Almost no countries were spared from President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs; even small, uninhabited islands in the Indian Ocean were included in the exhaustive list. But one country was notably missing: Russia.
One of the United States’ largest adversaries was omitted from the list of countries slapped with even the 10 percent baseline tariff – a move that raised some eyebrows given Trump’s previously friendly relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But other countries, including the uninhabited Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, which have a population of 59 and Svalbard and Jan Mayen, islands in the Arctic Circle with approximately 2,000 people, were hit with tariffs.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Wednesday that Russia was exempt because the U.S. doesn’t trade with them under heavy sanctions placed on the country after it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
However, the U.S. Trade Office indicates the U.S. does some trade with Russia, though significantly less than it did. Last year, the total goods trade with Russia was $3.5 billion.
Most of Russia’s exports to the U.S. are radioactive chemicals, nitrogenous fertilizers and platinum. They are the second-largest exporter of fertilizer to the U.S.
That number is still higher than the number of imports from other countries hit with tariffs such as Fiji, Paraguay or Albania.
Bessent reminded people that other countries the U.S. has heavily sanctioned, including Belarus, Cuba and North Korea, were also excluded from the tariffs.
Trump may have left Russia off the list as some reprieve while he seeks to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Russia did ask the U.S. to lift some of those sanction during the stalled peace talks. However, president recently threatened to impose tariffs on buyers of Russian oil if Putin fails to agree to a ceasefire deal.
“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,” Trump said during an NBC interview.
“That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States,” he added. “There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios that Russia could still face “additional strong sanctions.”
Meanwhile, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal announced new legislation on Tuesday that would slap 500 percent tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium or other products. The extreme measures are an attempt to get Russia to engage in good faith negotiations, according to the Daily Mail.
Other countries left off Trump’s tariff list are Canada and Mexico, the U.S.’s largest trading partners. Trump has already implemented tariffs on both countries for what he claims is their lack of attention to preventing fentanyl from being trafficked across the borders.
Source: independent.co.uk
