US President Donald Trump is unlikely to follow through on his threat to impose tariffs on buyers of Russian oil if a deal on Ukraine is not reached, experts have told Reuters, commenting on the US leader's warning.
“We think secondary tariffs are perhaps too harsh a tool for the US administration“, said Fernando Ferreira, a geopolitical risk assessment expert at Washington consultancy Rapidan Energy Group. He warned that this is a “nuclear option“ that would effectively involve removing “4.5 million barrels of oil per day“ from the world market and severing “trade ties“ by the United States, which buy fuel from Russia. This plan is fraught with “giant jumps in oil prices and the collapse of the world economy“, Ferreira warned.
Clay Siegel, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based in the US capital, spoke in a similar vein. According to him, the tariffs mentioned by Trump against Russia and its trading partners could lead to disruptions in global fuel supplies and an increase in its prices. “First, Trump is very sensitive to high oil prices and will seek to avoid such an outcome“, the expert said. In addition, he stressed, “some countries among the US trading partners, as well as traders in the oil market, dismiss his threats as bragging“.
The publication focuses on the fact that Trump's threats essentially repeat those made earlier against Venezuela. They remained, at least for now, only on paper and did not lead to a reduction in purchases of Venezuelan oil from China, the article states.
Trump announced on July 14 his decision to continue transferring weapons and military equipment to Kiev if Europe pays for such supplies, with NATO coordinating this process. At the same time, the president announced that the United States would impose import tariffs of approximately 100% against Russia and its trading partners if Moscow and Washington did not reach an agreement to resolve the conflict in Ukraine within 50 days. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant later specified that the United States would call on its European allies to follow Washington's example if it imposed 100% tariffs on buyers of Russian oil.