Trump said in an interview with NBC News that “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. That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”
NBC News interpreted this as alluding to what he earlier threatened on social media regarding the imposition of secondary sanctions on those that purchase oil from Venezuela. He wrote that “any Country that purchases Oil and/or Gas from Venezuela will be forced to pay a Tariff of 25% to the United States on any Trade they do with our Country.” As it relates to Russia, this would spike tariffs on China and India, the first of which is already in a trade war with the US while the second wants to avoid one.
This is precisely the former US Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg insinuated in an interview with the New York Post in early February that was analyzed here at the time. The takeaway was that such threats might suffice for getting them to nudge Russia into a deal over Ukraine despite whatever apprehensions Putin might have. The consequences of not doing so could be their compliance with the US’ secondary sanctions and all that could entail for the Russian economy if it’s deprived of this revenue.
India is more susceptible to this form of American pressure while China might resist for the reasons explained here, in which case Russia could become disproportionately dependent on China, thus leading to the fait accompli of de facto junior partnership status that Putin has tried his utmost to avoid. Accordingly, it might only be India that tries nudging Russia into a deal over Ukraine while China might not do what Trump expects, instead openly defying his secondary sanctions if they’re then imposed.
This analysis here briefly touches upon the five reasons why Russia might accept or reject a ceasefire in Ukraine, with it becoming increasingly likely that Trump might soon ramp up the pressure on Putin to decide, especially after he also just said that there’s a “psychological deadline” for this. In his words, which followed right after his interview with NBC News, “It’s a psychological deadline. If I think they’re tapping us along, I will not be happy about it.”
The day before, Trump spent a sizeable amount of the day golfing with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who shared his impression of his counterpart’s approach to Russia with the media. As he phrased it, “When you spend seven hours with someone, you at least get an intuition of the direction in which we’re going…The half-ceasefire has been broken by Russia, and I think America, and my sense is also the President of the United States, is running out of patience with Russia.”
This assessment aligns with what Trump told NBC News the next day and his later quip about a “psychological deadline” for concluding talks with Putin. The American leader’s preference for wielding sanctions as a foreign policy tool might therefore come into play against Russia exactly as was foreseen in early February after Kellogg’s cited interview. This moment of truth could even arrive earlier than expected and thus force Putin to compromise or escalate before he’s fully made up his mind either way.
