When President Trump unveiled main new tariffs on Wednesday, one huge economic system that he didn’t goal was Russia.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Wednesday that Moscow was spared as a result of sanctions imposed on the nation after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 imply that U.S.-Russian commerce had successfully stopped. North Korea, Cuba and Belarus, that are additionally topic to powerful sanctions, had been additionally excluded from the brand new levies.
Commerce knowledge paints a extra difficult image. The worth of U.S. commerce with Russia has fallen to its lowest stage in a long time following the invasion. However final yr, Russia nonetheless exported about $3 billion worth of goods to america, in keeping with U.S. commerce figures, principally fertilizer and platinum.
That determine is considerably greater than the worth of U.S. imports from some smaller nations that Mr. Trump focused, comparable to Laos and Fiji, prompting questions on whether or not the White Home’s choice to spare Russia was a strategic alternative.
Mr. Trump just lately threatened to impose tariffs on buyers of Russian oil, a commerce that’s the lifeline of the nation’s struggle machine, if President Vladimir V. Putin didn’t cooperate with U.S. efforts to dealer a cease-fire in Ukraine. Such tariffs would considerably complicate the nation’s overseas commerce.
Mr. Trump could also be holding again new financial restrictions on Russia as leverage within the peace talks, stated Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow on the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Middle in Berlin and a former official on the Russian central financial institution.
“I feel it’s a political choice,” Ms. Prokopenko stated. “Trump doesn’t need to escalate whereas his talks with Putin are ongoing.”
The concept Mr. Trump is utilizing tariffs as a geopolitical bargaining device seems to be supported by his remedy of Iran, one other goal of his deal-making ambitions. He put Iran within the lowest tier of the brand new tariffs, 10 %, which is decrease than the speed imposed on Israel, a staunch U.S. ally.
The composition of Russia’s exports may have additionally performed a task. Russia is the third largest overseas provider of fertilizer to america, and the full quantity of its fertilizer exports has elevated over the previous yr.
Mr. Trump has been weighing how one can shield American farmers, a key constituency, from the results of his commerce wars. Protecting the price of fertilizer low could possibly be a part of that technique.
