‘No real alternatives’ Trump’s tariff threat targets buyers of Russian oil. But reality could get in the way.

On July 14, Donald Trump made his promised “major statement” on the war in Ukraine, pledging additional military aid to Kyiv and threatening Russia with new sanctions. The U.S. president warned that 100-percent tariffs on exports to the United States could be imposed in 50 days — on September 1 — if a peace deal or ceasefire isn’t reached. The threat applies not just to Russia itself (which exports relatively little to the U.S.), but — more significantly — to its trading partners. While Trump didn’t name specific countries, members of his administration later clarified that he was referring to buyers of Russian oil. In doing so, Trump is echoing — in somewhat less extreme terms — a bill introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, which proposes slapping 500-percent tariffs on countries that continue purchasing energy resources from Russia. To understand how effective such sanctions might be, whether the global market has any real alternative to Russian oil, and what other restrictions Trump might theoretically impose, Meduza spoke with Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

— Donald Trump was rather vague when threatening secondary sanctions against Russia’s trading partners. But if we interpret his remarks as building on U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed legislation, he’s likely referring to buyers of Russian oil. So who exactly is Trump targeting?

— The main buyers of Russian oil right now are China, India, and Turkey. Smaller volumes are delivered by pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia. Then there are petroleum products, which have a broader range of buyers. That list, oddly enough, even includes Saudi Arabia, which purchases Russian fuel oil to burn in its oil-fired power plants.

— Can we say, then, that Trump is effectively threatening all of these countries? After all, some are U.S. allies, while others are powerful global players unlikely to take kindly to hostile actions from Washington.

— The key question isn’t so much how they’ll react, but whether such secondary tariffs can even work in practice. Suppose Vladimir Putin digs in — gives Trump a colorful explanation of what he thinks of the sanctions and declares that Russia will stay the course in pursuing its objectives. Fifty days go by, and it’s time for Trump to impose tariffs. So he does — then what?

Logically, that would mean 100 percent tariffs on all imports from China, India, and Turkey. And this would come just after tense negotiations — starting back in April — between the White House and nearly all of those governments over what their mutual tariffs would look like. At first, Washington’s threats sounded quite serious — some tariffs, particularly on China, were already prohibitively high.

— In China’s case, some of those tariffs were even over 100 percent…

— Yes, something like [completely implausible numbers]. But now it’s all being actively rolled back — largely because it turns out there are no real substitutes for Chinese goods, and the tariffs primarily hit American consumers. So no matter how much Trump might want to impose punishing tariffs on China, the U.S. simply can’t afford to do that right now. And it’s roughly the same story with India.

Turkey’s a bit different, but also very complicated. Ankara is a critical player in the Middle East today, and it’s not in the U.S.’s interest to pick a serious fight with it. With China, there’s already a natural rivalry, and the bridges are more or less burned — even without tariffs on Russian oil. But Turkey is both an ally and a highly influential mediator in an extremely sensitive region. For example, the fragile balance in Syria today is hard to imagine without Turkey’s involvement. So it’s unclear why [Washington would want to risk] a conflict with it over Russia.

And it’s also unclear how such tariffs would even be implemented. If we go back to Senator Graham’s bill, it effectively mandates that if passed by Congress, the president wouldn’t just be allowed but would be required to impose 500-percent tariffs on buyers of Russian oil. And once that decision is made, getting Congress to lift those sanctions later would be extremely difficult. It’s what negotiation theory calls a commitment device — burning your ships, so to speak. It’s meant to show: we’re willing to go all the way, no matter the cost — so you’d better surrender.

— One more hypothetical. Let’s say Trump’s September 1 deadline is approaching, the situation at the front hasn’t changed, and Putin refuses to back down. Could we expect buyers of Russian oil to start looking for alternatives? And do such alternatives even exist — or is Russia still irreplaceable on the market?

— There aren’t really any alternatives. It’s worth paying attention to what’s happening with the rollback of [voluntary] quotas by eight key OPEC+ members, who for a long time had been producing below their allowed levels under the broader OPEC+ agreement — by a combined total of around two million barrels per day. Now they’re quickly unwinding those self-imposed cuts, and by September, all of that oil should be hitting the market. Saudi Arabia and the UAE may even have some additional capacity to boost production further.

But here’s the paradox: judging by the pace at which this previously withheld oil is returning to the market, it’s clear that production is ramping up more slowly than expected. In May, it turned out that one of the countries lagging behind in unwinding quotas was Saudi Arabia. That’s led observers to question whether these eight OPEC+ [countries] can actually raise production to the levels they’ve announced. These doubts are already reflected in oil prices: the threat of a major war between Israel and Iran seems to have passed, the market is expecting a wave of new supply — yet the price of Brent crude is still hovering around $70 a barrel.

What we can say for sure is that no one has enough oil to fully replace Russian exports. So even if countries spooked by Trump’s threats hypothetically wanted to seek alternatives, they simply wouldn’t be able to find them.

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— Presumably, the issue isn’t just that there’s no alternative supply, but also that if Trump’s threat were implemented, it’s unclear what price that would carry. Wouldn’t any noticeable removal of Russian oil from the market send prices soaring?

— Yes. Once again, let’s suppose these countries say: we’re scared, and under these conditions, we’re no longer buying Russian oil. Then a price surge is inevitable.

Or they might say: go ahead, impose your sanctions, Mr. Trump — let’s see what you can actually do.

— Given everything we’ve just discussed, the second scenario sounds more realistic. In that case, if Trump understands how difficult his plan for secondary tariffs would be to implement, does he have any other tools to curb Russian oil exports?

— It’s hard to imagine what those might be. The Biden administration didn’t manage to meaningfully curb Russia’s energy export revenues. The whole issue boils down to trying to achieve that goal while keeping global supply roughly where it is today.

Trump might try to make the oil price cap work somehow — for example, by adding to the sanctions list every single vessel that has ever called at a port [while sanctions were in effect] to pick up Russian oil. Or at least those that did so in 2025. But that would be an extreme step: it could effectively sideline a massive portion of the global tanker fleet. We’re talking a substantial percentage of the shipping market, and hitting that share would inevitably send shockwaves through all major players.

These tankers haven’t only carried Russian oil — they might deliver from Russia today and from another major oil-producing country tomorrow. That’s how the market works. Disrupting that mechanism would cut off logistical infrastructure not just for Russia, but for everyone.

— You mentioned that the Biden administration wasn’t able to limit Russian oil exports. At the same time, there was a lot of talk about the last sanctions package from the Democratic administration, which was described as the toughest and most effective step yet in trying to cut off funding for the Kremlin’s war machine. Were those sanctions actually painful? Did they show up in export statistics or in Russia’s oil revenue trends?

— I’d agree they were more forceful sanctions. But whether they were more effective is a big question. Their impact lasted about three weeks. During that time, we saw the discount on Russian oil widen, transportation costs rise, and the revenues earned by sellers shipping crude out of the [Russian] Primorsk and Novorossiysk ports drop noticeably. But within three weeks, new loopholes for bypassing the sanctions had already been found, and within another three months, many of the tankers that had been targeted were back in service.

— So it turns out there are no truly effective sanctions against Russian oil — and no remaining tools for ratcheting up pressure on that front. Does that mean the energy sanctions track is essentially pointless now?

— Let’s put it this way: as things stand, the Western coalition backing Ukraine has not found a way to meaningfully restrict Russia’s oil trade. Sanctions have some effect — they throw sand in the gears, so to speak. They create friction and complications for Moscow: they’ve concentrated nearly all of Russia’s exports in just three main countries and introduced a discount, even if it’s not especially large. But they haven’t managed to fundamentally disrupt Russia’s oil exports.

— There’s another so-called “bad guy” in the oil world — Iran, which is also under heavy sanctions. If, following the bombing of its nuclear facilities, it suddenly decides to pursue renewed rapprochement with the West, could it serve as a reasonably viable alternative to Russia?

— Even in the best-case scenario, it would take several years for Iran to become that kind of alternative. It’s unlikely that many countries or operators would be willing to move into Iran’s oil sector and invest heavily in the Islamic Republic. No one can guarantee we won’t see a repeat of 2016, when Trump came to power and scrapped the nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama — a deal that seemed to satisfy all sides. That kind of risk will always deter foreign investors from putting money into Iran. It’s a sword of Damocles hanging over the country. So Iran will likely have to keep relying on its own resources. And that means it won’t be able to ramp up supply to other countries in any meaningful way.

Right now, Iran exports around 1.8 to 1.9 million barrels per day. Suppose that figure increases by 500,000 barrels. Compared to the five million barrels of oil that Russia exports daily, that’s barely a dent.