{"id":358834,"date":"2025-08-20T07:19:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T07:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/358834\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T07:19:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T07:19:19","slug":"why-is-the-us-sparing-china-but-not-india-for-importing-russian-oil-business-and-economy-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/358834\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is the US sparing China, but not India, for importing Russian oil? | Business and Economy News"},"content":{"rendered":"

United States President Donald Trump has threatened to slap new sanctions on Russia and secondary sanctions<\/a> on countries that buy Moscow\u2019s crude oil in efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

While Trump imposed an additional 25 percent tariff<\/a> earlier this month \u2013 to a total of 50 percent \u2013 on India\u2019s goods, citing its continued imports of Russian oil, he has not instigated similar punitive actions<\/a> against China, the largest buyer of Russian energy.<\/p>\n

So, why has the Trump administration mounted pressure on India to stop purchasing Russian oil while taking little action against China?<\/p>\n

Who is buying Russian oil, and how does Trump want to prevent that?<\/p>\n

As the largest purchaser of Russian oil, China imported a record 109 million tonnes of this product last year, representing nearly 20 percent of its total energy imports, Chinese customs data showed.<\/p>\n

India, by contrast, imported 88 million tonnes of Russian oil in 2024.<\/p>\n

As such, China has arguably been Russia\u2019s key economic lifeline, leading to accusations that Beijing is indirectly helping Moscow in its war on Ukraine, now in its fourth year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is understood that lawmakers from both main US political parties are pushing for a bill \u2013 the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 \u2013 that would target any country that buys Russian oil and natural gas.<\/p>\n

The bill would give Trump the authority to impose 500 percent tariffs against nations perceived to be helping Russia. US senators are reportedly waiting for Trump\u2019s approval to move the bill forward.<\/p>\n

\"Russia'sRussia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin (R) speaks with India\u2019s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) during a visit to the Zvezda shipyard, accompanied by Rosneft Russian oil giant chief Igor Sechin (C) [File: Alexander Nemenov\/Pool via AFP]What reasons has Trump given for not imposing new tariffs on China?<\/p>\n

Asked by Fox News on August 15 if he was considering secondary sanctions on Beijing after he and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to agree on a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire in Alaska last week, Trump said, \u201cWell, because of what happened today, I think I don\u2019t have to think about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don\u2019t have to think about that right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Observers suspect Trump is buying time to allow negotiations on a broad trade deal that would include rare earth minerals.<\/p>\n

Rare earths<\/a>\u00a0are a group of 17 elements essential to numerous manufacturing industries, from auto parts to clean energy and military technology. China has long dominated the mining and processing of rare earth minerals.<\/p>\n

Because numerous US industries are heavily reliant on Chinese minerals, they remain a central issue in ongoing trade talks.<\/p>\n

Trump has other reasons for giving China an easier ride than India<\/a>. In particular, he\u2019s keen to avoid a tariff spike just as US retailers stock up on inventories of Chinese goods ahead of December\u2019s Christmas holiday season.<\/p>\n

For his part, Trump has taken steps to reduce trade flashpoints in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the US eased some of its export restrictions on advanced semiconductors \u2013 a key demand from China.<\/p>\n

On August 11, Trump permitted US company Nvidia<\/a> to sell advanced chips to China \u2013 even if the tech giant would have to pay 15 percent of its China sales to the federal government. Trump had previously barred the deal.<\/p>\n

Speaking to CNBC news on Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended Washington\u2019s decision not to impose secondary sanctions against China, saying Beijing purchased 13 percent of Russian oil before the Ukraine war, which has now increased to 16 percent. \u201cSo China has a diversified input of their oil,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that China had not engaged in the kind of \u201carbitrage\u201d undertaken by India.<\/p>\n

But Bessent accused India of \u201cprofiteering\u201d. He pointed out that before the Ukraine war, India\u2019s import of Russian oil was less than 1 percent. But \u201cnow, I believe, it\u2019s up to 42 percent,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is what I would call the Indian arbitrage \u2013 buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product,\u201d he told CNBC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve made $16bn in excess profits \u2013 some of the richest families in India.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro became the second senior Trump administration official to accuse India of financing Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine<\/a>. Earlier this month, Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff at the White House, said that New Delhi\u2019s purchase of Russian crude was \u201cnot acceptable\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What have other officials said?<\/p>\n

On August 12, US Vice President JD Vance declined to say whether Trump would move against Beijing as he did with New Delhi the previous week, when Washington announced an extra 25 percent tariff on India\u2019s imports over its continued purchase of Russian oil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president said he\u2019s thinking about it, but he hasn\u2019t made any firm decisions \u2026 the China issue\u2019s a little bit more complicated because our relationship with China, it just, it affects a lot of other things that have nothing to do with the Russian situation,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that energy prices could rise if the US imposes secondary sanctions on China for refining Russian oil.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Rubio said, \u201cIf you put secondary sanctions on a country \u2013 let\u2019s say you were to go after the oil sales of Russian oil to China. Well, China just refines that oil. That oil is then sold into the global marketplace, and anyone who\u2019s buying that oil would be paying more for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Beijing\u2019s embassy in Washington said China\u2019s trade with Russia falls within the scope of international law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe international community, including China, has conducted normal cooperation with Russia within the framework of international law,\u201d said Liu Pengyu, the embassy\u2019s spokesman, on July 6.<\/p>\n

How would heightened tariffs affect the US and Chinese economies?<\/p>\n

A ceasefire deal in Ukraine, with the resulting reduction of sanctions on Russia, would bring greater stability to the international system and a boon for China\u2019s economy, not least after the recent subdued economic data in July.<\/p>\n

Last month, China\u2019s economy slowed as factory activity, investment and retail sales fell from June, suggesting that spillovers from Trump\u2019s tariffs are casting a pall over the world\u2019s number-two economy.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, China\u2019s youth unemployment rate rose to its highest level in 11 months in July, as the urban jobless rate for the 16-24 age group, excluding students, rose to 17.8 percent \u2013 up from 14.5 percent in June.<\/p>\n

Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera that \u201ccracks are starting to show [in the Chinese economy] and the overall picture is not great\u201d.<\/p>\n

Still, she said that, \u201cChinese banks and firms have been preparing for the possibility of secondary sanctions for a long time already. They already started worrying about this under the [Joe] Biden administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, Beijing has stepped up its efforts to diversify trade routes and build greater numbers of strategic products at home, making China\u2019s economy \u201charder to strangle through elevated or secondary sanctions\u201d, said Garcia Herrero.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly,\u201d she said, \u201cgiven the high level of goods imports from China to the US, higher tariffs would also raise inflation for American consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, the US trade deficit with China<\/a> was $295.4bn, marking a 5.8 percent rise from 2023.<\/p>\n

What is the current state of US-China trade?<\/p>\n

On August 12, the US and China extended a pre-existing tariff pause \u2013 and avoided an all-out trade war \u2013 for 90 days. With the extension, the imposition of higher US tariffs on China was suspended until November 10, with all other elements of the truce remaining in place.<\/p>\n

The two sides agreed to their first tariff pause on May 11<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In April, China was slapped with a tariff of 145 percent while Beijing slapped a reciprocal tariff of 125 percent on the US \u2013 rates that amounted to a virtual trade embargo between the countries.<\/p>\n

High tariffs prompted the US trade deficit with China to fall to its narrowest level since 2004 in June, according to US Census Bureau data. The US trade gap with China fell by $22.2bn from March to August. That amounts to a 70 percent drop from one year earlier.<\/p>\n

But the tariff truce agreed to in May in Geneva, Switzerland, lowered the temperature by temporarily slashing US tariffs on Chinese imports to 30 percent, while Chinese levies on US exports fell to 10 percent. Beijing also agreed to resume some rare earth exports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there will be a [trade] deal of some sort soon,\u201d Garcia Herrero said. \u201cNothing dramatic, as the levels of trust on both sides are low. But the US and China both need some positive news, or they face hitting economic walls.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States President Donald Trump has threatened to slap new sanctions on Russia and secondary sanctions on countries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[12633,1395,32,730,12,28137,332,7661,1219,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-358834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-business-and-economy","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-india","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-oil-and-gas","14":"tag-russia","15":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","16":"tag-trade-war","17":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115059881977228078","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}