“We did it with India. We’re doing it probably with a couple of others. One of them could be China,” Trump said.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. may explore putting additional tariffs on China for its purchases of crude oil from Russia, even as one of his top advisers played down the possibility.
Trump’s comments came after his administration imposed a 25% additional tariff on India for purchasing Russian oil. According to a Bloomberg News report, when a reporter asked if the U.S. could punish China for the same reason, Trump said it “may happen.”
“I mean, I don’t know. I can’t tell you yet. But I can — we did it with India. We’re doing it probably with a couple of others. One of them could be China,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Any potential tariffs on China could restart a trade war between the two largest economies of the world. The two sides had agreed to extend a tariff truce only the previous week in Stockholm, following some fruitful discussions surrounding rare earths and AI chips.
The Bloomberg report said that White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told reporters that such a move is unlikely, as higher duties may hurt the U.S. “We have over 50% tariffs on China. We don’t want to get to a point where we hurt ourselves,” he reportedly said.
Retail sentiment on Stocktwits about the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) was in the ‘bearish’ territory at the time of writing.
China and India are two of the top buyers of Russian oil. While there has been no response from the Chinese government yet regarding Trump’s comments, Beijing is likely backing New Delhi. The spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India, Yu Jing, shared a quote from a newspaper article stating that other countries cannot influence India’s foreign policy choices.
Earlier on Wednesday, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff concluded a three-hour-long meeting with President Putin. Although the outcome of the meeting is not yet known, the additional tariffs on India suggest a stalemate.
Later, in a post on Truth Social, President Trump said Witkoff’s meeting with President Putin was “highly productive.”
“Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close,” he said, adding that they will work towards ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the coming days and weeks.
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