Trump’s new trade war: a new strategic move or a lever of pressure?
In his latest stance, US President Donald Trump has made the imposition of broader sanctions against Russia conditional on the full cooperation of the country’s allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and has called on European countries to impose 50 to 100 percent tariffs on Chinese goods in addition to stopping oil purchases from Moscow.
In a post on the social network Truth, Trump called the proposal “a letter to all NATO countries and the world,” and stated that without such coordination, US sanctions would be “a waste of time and energy.”
Trump, who had repeatedly promised to end the war in Ukraine quickly since the beginning of his election campaign, now claims that China has a powerful influence over Russia and that imposing heavy tariffs by NATO will break this influence and force Beijing to pressure Vladimir Putin to end the war. This comes after sources familiar with the matter told Axios that Trump privately admitted that he had overestimated Putin’s desire for peace and that he had recently become doubtful about his ability to influence the Kremlin.
A month ago, Trump warned of severe consequences if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire or concrete steps toward peace. Still, since then, not only has no such step been taken, but Moscow has also launched its largest airstrike on Ukrainian cities, and Russian drones have entered Polish airspace, an incident that NATO allies described as provocative but Trump called “probably a mistake.”
Analysts say Trump’s new plan reflects his effort to shift the pressure burden from the Kremlin to Europe and its allies. His administration has repeatedly stressed that purchases of Russian oil by some European countries — including Hungary and Slovakia, whose leaders are political allies of Trump — have weakened the West’s bargaining position with Moscow. Trump is trying to put additional pressure on his allies by tying further US sanctions to coordinated NATO actions and imposing heavy tariffs on China.