Trump has proposed EU impose duties of up to 100% against India and China - FT

US President Donald Trump has asked the European Union to impose duties of up to 100% on imports of products from India and China as part of a joint effort to increase pressure on Russia, the Financial Times reported, citing three sources.

Trump made "this extraordinary demand" after joining a meeting of senior US and EU officials who gathered in Washington to discuss ways to increase economic pressure on the Kremlin, the newspaper said.

"We are ready to act, ready to act right now, but we will only do so if our European partners support us," said a US official quoted by the FT.

"The president got involved this morning, and in his opinion, the obvious approach here could be: let's all impose high duties and keep them until China agrees to stop buying [Russian] oil," he said. - In fact, there are not that many options where oil can be sent," he said.

Another interlocutor told the publication that Washington is ready to "mirror" any duties imposed by the EU on China and India by raising duties on imports from both countries to the US.

China and India have become the largest importers of Russian oil after 2022, which has drawn criticism from the United States. In August, Trump imposed a 50 percent duty on goods from India, demanding an end to Russian oil purchases. Despite this, Indian refiners have continued to buy, although they have cut volumes by about 28 percent from the peak level reached in March, Bloomberg wrote. At the same time, the volume of Russian crude supplies to China rose to a five-month high, the agency wrote.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor