NEW YORK: US President Donald Trump has said that he was waiting to see what happens at the meeting between Russia’s leaders and his special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Wednesday before deciding on the punitive tariffs on those buying oil from Russia.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, he said, “We have a meeting with Russia tomorrow. We're going to see what happens, we'll make that determination, at that time”.
On Tuesday morning, Trump warned that he would impose heavy tariffs on India within the next 24 hours, but his afternoon statement, while talking to reporters, appeared to indicate that he may hold off on the threat if there was movement on the talks to end the Ukraine War.
Reminded by a reporter of his threat to impose 100 per cent tariffs on countries buying Russian oil, the US president denied it.
“I never said a percentage, but we'll be doing quite a bit of that”, he said.
But on July 14, he said that “if we don't have a deal in 50 days”, the tariffs on oil buyers known as secondary tariffs “will be at 100 per cent”.
He has since cut the 50-day deadline to 12 days, which will end this week.
In his morning interview with CNBC, Trump also claimed India would offer zero tariffs on imports from the US.
“India went from the highest tariffs ever (to) they will give us zero tariffs, and they can go in”, he said. “But that's not good enough because of what they're doing with oil, not good”.
Therefore, he said, he would add the punitive tariffs to the 25 per cent he announced last week.