US President Donald Trump has reportedly put pressure on G7 countries to follow his lead in imposing high tariffs on China and India on Friday, in order to push the Kremlin to engage in peace talks with Ukraine.
The Financial Times reported on Friday that it had seen a US position paper sent to attendees of a video conference between finance ministers from the G7 countries (Canada, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Britain.)
“The G7 should immediately impose 50-100 per cent secondary tariffs on China and India for their purchases of Russian crude oil,” the document is said to read.
Earlier this week, the Financial Times reported that Trump had ordered the EU to impose tariffs of up to 100% on India and China – in line with the US government’s focus on using financial rather than military strategies to bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“The G7 should target the enablers and profiteers, mostly in China and India, to stop them from prolonging this war,” it reportedly continues.
At the start of this week, EU sanctions envoy David O’Sullivan and his delegation visited Washington for talks intended to increase coordination between US and EU efforts to sanction Russia, as well as to curtail its lucrative sanctions-busting efforts.
On Friday, EU countries agreed to extend its current sanctions against Russia for another six months. Brussels is currently engaged in finalising the details of a further round of sanctions – its 19th.
Tensions with Russia are at boiling point in Europe after Russia’s unprecedented violation of Polish airspace in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Poland and its NATO allies scrambled jets to shoot down the drones, which remained in Poland for roughly seven hours.
Trump sought to downplay the incident – in which Russia denies all involvement – claiming that it could have been a “mistake.”
However, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced the launch of Operation Eastern Sentry on Friday – a large-scale operation which will increase and coordinate air and ground defenses along the bloc’s eastern border.