United States President Donald Trump has threatened to slap new sanctions on Russia and secondary sanctions on nations that purchase Moscow’s crude in efforts to finish the Russia-Ukraine battle.
Whereas Trump imposed an extra 25 % tariff earlier this month – to a complete of fifty % – on India’s items, citing its continued imports of Russian oil, he has not instigated related punitive actions in opposition to China, the biggest purchaser of Russian power.
So, why has the Trump administration mounted strain on India to cease buying Russian oil whereas taking little motion in opposition to China?
Who’s shopping for Russia oil, and the way does Trump wish to forestall that?
As the biggest purchaser of Russian oil, China imported a document 109 million tonnes of this product final yr, representing almost 20 % of its complete power imports, Chinese language customs information confirmed.
India, against this, imported 88 million tonnes of Russian oil in 2024.
As such, China has arguably been Russia’s key financial lifeline, resulting in accusations that Beijing is not directly serving to Moscow in its battle on Ukraine, now in its fourth yr.
It’s understood that lawmakers from each primary US political events are pushing for a invoice – the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 – that might goal any nation that buys Russian oil and pure fuel.
The invoice would give Trump the authority to impose 500 % tariffs in opposition to nations which are perceived to be serving to Russia. US senators are reportedly ready on Trump’s OK to maneuver the invoice ahead.
What causes has Trump cited for not imposing new tariffs on China?
Requested by Fox Information on August 15 if he was contemplating secondary sanctions on Beijing after he and Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t agree on a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire in Alaska final week, Trump mentioned, “Effectively, due to what occurred right this moment, I believe I don’t have to consider that.”
“Now, I’ll have to consider it in two weeks or three weeks or one thing, however we don’t have to consider that proper now,” he mentioned.
Observers suspect Trump is shopping for time to permit negotiations on a broad commerce deal that would come with uncommon earth minerals.
Uncommon earths are a gaggle of 17 components important to quite a few manufacturing industries, from auto elements to wash power and army expertise. China has lengthy dominated the mining and processing of uncommon earth minerals.
As a result of quite a few US industries are closely reliant on Chinese language minerals, they continue to be a central situation in ongoing commerce talks.
Trump has different causes for giving China a neater trip than India. Specifically, he’s eager to keep away from a tariff spike simply as US retailers top off on inventories of Chinese language items forward of December’s Christmas vacation season.
For his half, Trump has taken steps to cut back commerce flashpoints in latest weeks. Earlier this month, the US eased a few of its export restrictions on superior semiconductors – a key demand from China.
On August 11, Trump permitted US firm Nvidia to promote superior chips to China – even when the tech big must pay 15 % of its China gross sales to the federal authorities. Trump had beforehand barred the deal.
Chatting with CNBC information on Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended Washington’s resolution to not impose secondary sanctions in opposition to China saying, Beijing bought 13 % of Russian oil earlier than the Ukraine battle, which has now elevated to 16 %. “So China has a diversified enter of their oil,” he mentioned.
He added that China had not engaged within the form of “arbitrage” achieved by India.
However Bessent accused India of “profiteering”. He identified that earlier than the Ukraine battle, India’s import of Russian oil was lower than 1 %. However “now, I consider, it’s as much as 42 %,” he mentioned. “That is what I might name the Indian arbitrage – shopping for low cost Russian oil, reselling it as product,” he instructed CNBC.
“They’ve made $16bn in extra income – a number of the richest households in India.”
On Monday, White Home commerce adviser Peter Navarro grew to become the second senior Trump administration official to accuse India of financing Russia’s battle in Ukraine. Earlier this month, Stephen Miller, deputy chief of workers on the White Home, mentioned that New Delhi’s buy of Russia crude was “not acceptable”.
What produce other officers mentioned?
On August 12, US Vice President JD Vance declined to say whether or not Trump would transfer in opposition to Beijing as he did with New Delhi the earlier week, when Washington introduced an additional 25 % tariff on India’s imports over its continued buy of Russian oil.
“The president mentioned he’s eager about it, however he hasn’t made any agency selections … the China situation’s just a little bit extra difficult as a result of our relationship with China, it simply, it impacts numerous different issues that don’t have anything to do with the Russian state of affairs,” Vance mentioned.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that power costs might rise if the US imposes secondary sanctions on China for refining Russian oil.
In an interview with Fox Information on Monday, Rubio mentioned, “In case you put secondary sanctions on a rustic – let’s say you had been to go after the oil gross sales of Russian oil to China. Effectively, China simply refines that oil. That oil is then bought into the worldwide market, and anybody who’s shopping for that oil could be paying extra for it.”
In the meantime, Beijing’s embassy in Washington mentioned China’s commerce with Russia falls inside the scope of worldwide regulation.
“The worldwide group, together with China, has performed regular cooperation with Russia inside the framework of worldwide regulation,” mentioned Liu Pengyu, the embassy’s spokesman, on July 6.
How would heightened tariffs influence the US and Chinese language economies?
A ceasefire deal in Ukraine, with the ensuing discount of sanctions on Russia, would carry better stability to the worldwide system and a boon for China’s economic system, not least after the final subdued financial information in July.
Final month, China’s economic system slowed as manufacturing unit exercise, funding and retail gross sales fell from June, suggesting that spillovers from Trump’s tariffs are casting a pall over the world’s number-two economic system.
Elsewhere, China’s youth unemployment charge rose to its highest degree in 11 months in July, because the city jobless charge for the 16-24 age group, excluding college students, rose to 17.8 % – up from 14.5 % in June.
Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis in Hong Kong, instructed Al Jazeera that “Cracks are beginning to present (within the Chinese language economic system) and the general image isn’t nice.”
Nonetheless, she mentioned that “Chinese language banks and corporations have been making ready for the potential of secondary sanctions for a very long time already. They already began worrying about this underneath the (Joe) Biden administration.”
Lately, Beijing has stepped up its efforts to diversify commerce routes and construct better numbers of strategic merchandise at residence, making China’s economic system “more durable to strangle by means of elevated or secondary sanctions”, mentioned Garcia Herrero.
“Clearly,” she mentioned, “given the excessive degree of products imports from China to the US, greater tariffs would additionally increase inflation for American customers.”
Final yr, the US commerce deficit with China was $295.4bn, marking a 5.8 % rise from 2023.
What’s the present state of US-China commerce?
On August 12, the US and China prolonged a pre-existing tariff pause – and prevented an all-out commerce battle – for 90 days. With the extension, the imposition of upper US tariffs on China was suspended till November 10, with all different components of the truce remaining in place.
The 2 sides agreed to their first tariff pause on Might 11.
In April, China was slapped with a tariff of 145 % whereas Beijing slapped a reciprocal tariff of 125 % on the US – charges that amounted to a digital commerce embargo between the nations.
Excessive tariffs prompted the US commerce deficit with China to fall to its narrowest degree since 2004 in June, based on US Census Bureau information. The US commerce hole with China fell by $22.2bn from March to August. That quantities to a 70 % drop from one yr earlier.
However the tariff truce agreed to in Might in Geneva, Switzerland, lowered the temperature by briefly slashing US tariffs on Chinese language imports to 30 %, whereas Chinese language levies on US exports fell to 10 %. Beijing additionally agreed to renew some uncommon earth exports.
“I believe there will likely be a (commerce) deal of some type quickly,” Garcia Herrero mentioned. “Nothing dramatic, as the degrees of belief on each side are low. However the US and China each want some constructive information, or they face hitting financial partitions.”
