US president unlikely to enforce 100 per cent tariff on Russian oil

Trump said this month he would put 100% secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian exports unless Moscow agrees to a major peace deal with Ukraine in 50 days

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US President Donald Trump is unlikely to follow through on his threat to place 100% tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil because it would worsen politically-damaging inflation pressures and his similar threat against buyers of Venezuelan oil has had limited success, especially in China.

Trump said this month he would put 100% secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian exports unless Moscow agrees to a major peace deal with Ukraine in 50 days, a deadline that would expire in early September.

The threat mirrored an announcement in March that the US would slap tariffs on buyers of sanctioned Venezuelan oil. No such tariffs have been imposed since, even though Venezuela's exports of oil have jumped.

“We find that secondary tariffs may be too blunt of an instrument for the administration to use,” on Russia, said Fernando Ferreira, the director of geopolitical risk service at consultancy Rapidan Energy Group.