US President Donald Trump, during today’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, urged Europe to take two important steps against Russia, The Guardian informs. An unnamed White House official said that Trump called for Europe to stop buying Russian oil. The US leader also, according to the official, urged European leaders to increase economic pressure on China to punish it for financing Russia’s military efforts.
Trump hits India with punishing 50% tariffs for buying Russian oil
President Donald Trump’s promised 50% tariffs on India took effect Wednesday as the United States risks blowing up a relationship considered crucial in its effort to counter the rise of China. Trump started the tariff rate at 25% but doubled it this month as punishment for India’s buying Russian oil, making it one of the highest of the many tariffs imposed during his ongoing global trade war.
Trump is Venezuelan oil exports over their drug trade and starting to bomb them
Much of Venezuela is ungoverned or ill-governed—allowing drug trafficking, illegal gold mining, and other criminal activities to spread to neighboring countries. Corrupt Venezuelans and other criminals use Venezuela’s permissive environment to generate illicit income and then move the assets to hide where they came from. U.S. agencies have taken on efforts to disrupt illicit financial transactions, including those related to drug trafficking and other criminal activities.
UK, France and Germany initiate ‘snapback’ sanctions on Iran over status of nuclear program
France, Germany and the United Kingdom moved Thursday to reimpose United Nations oil sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, further isolating Tehran after its atomic sites were repeatedly bombed during a 12-day war with Israel. The process, termed a “snapback” by the diplomats who negotiated it into Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, was designed to be veto-proof at the U.N. and could take effect in a month. It would again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran and penalize any development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures, further squeezing the country’s reeling economy. The move starts a 30-day clock for sanctions to return, a period that likely will see intensified diplomacy from Iran, whose refusal to cooperate with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, started the crisis. Iran will also probably emerge as a top focus of the U.N. General Assembly when it meets next month in New York.
Russian shadow tankers face Baltic, The Gulf of Finland and North sea ban in new crackdown
United States President Donald Trump’s new and threatened future secondary sanctions on Russian oil exports could significantly help to restrict Russia’s shadow fleet operations in the Gulf of Finland, some experts say. More than half of Russia’s crude exports go via the Baltic Sea, generally via hundreds of tankers with often dubious documentation – though experts say this latter aspect is making them harder to detect and not really deterring the growth of the shadow fleet, which goes on. A large share of Russian oil destined for China and India, who had been enjoying the benefits of getting cheap, albeit sanctioned Russian oil, via the Gulf of Finland. The U.S. and the EU have together so far blacklisted nearly half of Russia’s shadow fleet vessels — consisting of about 600 tankers, transporting Russian crude. Media reports say the White House is planning a fresh round of sanctions against the shadow fleet itself.