US President Trump urges all NATO countries to stop buying oil from Russia

US President Donald Trump has called on all NATO countries to stop buying Russian oil and place tariffs on China of up to 100 percent. 

Posting on social media on Saturday, Trump questioned NATO’s commitment to winning the war in Ukraine. He said the continued purchase of Russian oil by some member countries weakened NATO’s negotiating position with Moscow.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2023, Turkey has been the third largest buyer of Russian oil. Other members of the 32-state alliance still dependent on Russian fuel include Hungary and Slovakia.

Trump’s post comes days after Russian drones entered Polish airspace and were shot down by NATO aircraft. But the US president played down the incident, saying it “could have been a mistake.” 

Trump himself has been slow in putting pressure on Moscow to end the war. Recent talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska failed to deliver any progress towards peace. The US Congress is currently trying to get the president to back a bill toughening sanctions. Trump in his post said that a NATO ban on Russian oil plus tariffs on China would “also be of great help in ENDING this deadly, but RIDICULOUS, WAR.”

China tariffs

The post ends with Trump urging NATO countries to put tariffs of between 50 and 100 percent on China and withdraw them if the war in Ukraine ends.

“China has a strong control over Russia,” Trump writes, saying that powerful tariffs “will break that grip.” The US president has already placed a 25 percent import tax on goods from India for its purchase of Russian energy products.

In his post, Trump said responsibility for the war fell on his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He did not include in that list Putin, who launched the invasion.

Trump’s post builds on a call Friday with finance ministers in the Group of Seven, a forum of industrialized democracies. During the call, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called on their counterparts to have a “unified front” to cut off “the revenues funding Putin’s war machine,” according to Greer’s office.