The US will urge its allies in the Group of Seven to imposes tariffs as high as 100% on China and India for their purchases of Russian oil in an effort to convince President Vladimir Putin to end his war in Ukraine.
The US will also tell the G-7 countries they should create a legal pathway to seize immobilized sovereign Russian assets and consider seizing or using the principle of those assets to fund Ukraine’s defense, according to a US proposal seen by Bloomberg. The vast majority of the about $300 billion of Moscow’s immobilized assets are in Europe.
Separately, senior US officials have floated with European counterparts the idea of gradually seizing Russia’s frozen central bank assets to increase the pressure on Moscow to enter into negotiations, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Profits generated by the assets are currently being used to provide loans to Ukraine. Canada, which holds the presidency of the G-7, convened a meeting of the group’s finance ministers on Friday to “discuss further measures to increase pressure on Russia and limit their war machinery,” according to a statement.
The US proposal calls for 50% to 100% secondary tariffs on China and India as well as restrictive trade measures on both imports and exports to curb the flow of Russian energy and to prevent the transfer of dual-use technologies into Russia, according to the proposal.
A spokesperson from the White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposals.
President Donald Trump has told European officials he’s willing to impose sweeping new tariffs on India and China to push Putin to the negotiating table with Ukraine — but only if nations in Europe do so as well.
Trump made the ask when he called into a meeting with senior US and European Union officials in Washington this week and said the US would be willing to mirror tariffs imposed by Europe on either country, Bloomberg reported earlier.
The proposal poses a challenge given that several nations in the EU, including Hungary, have blocked more stringent sanctions targeting Russia’s energy sector. Such measures would require the backing of all member states.
Trump’s suggestion comes after his deadline for Putin to hold a bilateral meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy passed without indication that the Russian leader was genuinely interested in engaging in face-to-face peace talks. Instead, Moscow has stepped up its Ukraine bombing campaign.
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