US President Donald Trump is urging European Union officials to slap China and India with tariffs of up to 100 per cent as part of a strategy to end Russia's war in Ukraine, according to officials.
China and India are major purchasers of Russian oil which helps keep the Russia's economy afloat as it continues to pursue its expanded invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022.
Mr Trump, who said he could end the war in a day on taking the presidency, has so far failed to broker a deal to end the bloodshed.
The US president made the tariff request, which was conveyed via conference call, to EU sanctions envoy David O'Sullivan and other EU officials.
The EU delegation is currently in Washington to discuss sanctions coordination.
An EU diplomat said the US had indicated it was willing to impose similar tariffs if the European Union heeded the US request.
"They are basically saying: We'll do this but you need to do it with us," the diplomat said.
The US request, if heeded, would result in a change of strategy for the EU, which has preferred to isolate Russia with sanctions rather than tariffs.
China firmly opposes the US applying such so-called economic pressure, its foreign ministry said at a regular press briefing on Wednesday, adding that it also opposed the using of China in discussions on Russia.
Mr Trump’s request was first reported by the Financial Times, with similar stories also being published by the BBC, Bloomberg and The Guardian.
He has frequently threatened to impose tariffs on India and China as punishment for their purchases of Russian crude.
While Mr Trump did hike tariffs on India by 25 per cent in part due to its economic relationship with the Kremlin, he is yet to pull the trigger on the more punishing options he has floated.
At times, he has complained that Europe itself has not fully decoupled from Russia, which supplied about 19 per cent of EU gas imports last year although the bloc says it is committed to fully ending its dependency on Russian energy.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the EU was considering a faster phase-out of Russian fossil fuels as part of new sanctions against Moscow.
In her State of the Union address to the European Parliament, Ms von der Leyen said that the EU is "looking at phasing out Russian fossil fuels faster, the shadow fleet and third countries" as part of the 19th package of sanctions now being prepared.
The Kremlin said on Monday that no sanctions would ever force Russia to change course in the war in Ukraine.
The EU has already banned imports of seaborne crude oil from Russia, accounting for more than 90 per cent of its Russian oil imports, and imposed a price cap on Russian oil trade.
As reports emerged of Mr Trump’s push to get the EU to enact higher levies on China and India, he took to social media and indicated that Washington was working with New Delhi to address trade barriers.
He added that he was looking forward to speaking with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Reuters/ABC
