Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed this week that the President intends to create a \u201cvictory fund\u201d for Ukrainian weapons purchases, by fuelling it with tariffs levied against Beijing for China\u2019s ongoing purchases of Russian oil. Calling China \u201can unreliable partner for the world\u201d, Bessent thundered on Wednesday \u201cit is the purchase of Russian oil by China that fuels the Russian war machines\u2026Make no mistake, this is China vs The World\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SEI_269754233.jpg\")
Trump and China\u2019s President Xi Jinping during the G20 summit in Japan in 2019 (Photo: Kevin Lamarque\/ Reuters)<\/p>\n
Bessent urged European governments to back the White House proposals by pledging to impose tariffs of their own on China over its reliance on Russian oil. \u201cWe will respond\u2026if our European partners will join us\u201d, he said. \u201cWhether you want to call it a \u2018Russian oil tariff on China\u2019 or a \u2018Ukrainian victory tariff on China\u2019\u2026our European allies have to be willing to follow\u201d. He claimed, without providing any proof, that the President can count on the support of 85 US senators \u2013 a massive majority \u2013 to back the introduction of \u201c500 per cent tariffs on China for the purchase of Russian oil\u201d, but protested that European lawmakers have no similar plans to follow suit.<\/p>\n
New FeatureIn ShortQuick Stories. Same trusted journalism.<\/p>\n
If enforced, these would be the second set of \u201csecondary sanctions\u201d imposed by the White House relating to Russian oil shipments. India is currently facing 50 per cent tariffs on exports to the United States, a number that includes a 25 per cent penalty for Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s continued support of Putin\u2019s economy by purchasing Moscow\u2019s oil.<\/p>\n
But on Wednesday, Trump unexpectedly claimed<\/a> that Modi had agreed to abandon further purchases from Putin. \u201cHe assured me today that they will not be buying oil from Russia,\u201d Trump told reporters at the White House. In Delhi, the Indian government offered no confirmation of that claim. In a statement, it noted that \u201cIndia is a significant importer of oil and gas. It has been our consistent policy to safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer in a volatile energy scenario\u201d, and said discussions with the White House were merely \u201congoing\u201d.<\/p>\n The notion that Trump might be interested in creating a \u201cvictory fund\u201d for Ukraine to spend on munitions will certainly attract the attention of President Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a>. In February, Trump angrily accused the Ukrainian leader of lacking the capacity to beat the Russians. \u201cYou\u2019re not in a good position. You don\u2019t have the cards\u201d, he shouted at Zelensky during their contentious, made-for-TV Oval Office meeting.<\/p>\n Putin\u2019s refusal to accept terms either for a short-term truce, or for face-to-face negotiations with Zelensky, has brought Trump\u2019s diplomatic efforts to broker the conflict\u2019s end to a standstill. But on Monday in Jerusalem, he publicly instructed Special Envoy Steve Witkoff<\/a> to prioritise action on the war against Ukraine, now that all the living Israeli hostages have been returned from Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Washington, top Trump officials have been meeting this week with a Ukrainian delegation led by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko and Zelensky\u2019s Chief of Staff, Andriy Yermak. Zelensky himself will meet Trump at the White House on Friday, amid talk of an intensified campaign of economic and military pressure on Putin to sue for peace. The White House will hope that simply the whisper of an American \u201cvictory fund\u201d for Kyiv will help concentrate Putin\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n But the Russian leader may, once again, choose to call Trump\u2019s bluff. He will note that the proposed US tariffs on Chinese oil require European backing before the White House will agree to impose them. He will know that President Xi Jinping<\/a> is expecting to meet Trump face to face at the upcoming APEC summit<\/a> in South Korea, and that the threat of tariffs on oil purchases could be negotiated away at that session. He may recall last month\u2019s<\/a> meeting of the Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation in the Chinese city of Tianjin, where Xi, Putin and Modi pledged to establish a new alliance with one another to stand up to Washington\u2019s hegemony.<\/p>\n Most importantly of all, he will remind himself that over the past nine months, Trump has engaged in numerous threats to force the Kremlin\u2019s hand, none of which has ever materialised. Putin may believe that once again, Trump\u2019s bark will prove much worse than his bite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US President has floated a victory fund for Ukraine to buy weapons with the proceeds from tariffs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[1395,32,332,7661,479],"class_list":{"0":"post-504451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","12":"tag-tariffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115384525324233663","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504451","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=504451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"(FILES)](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SEI_266312093.jpg\")
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office in August (Photo: Mandel Ngan \/ AFP)<\/p>\n