Double standards

Trump puts tariffs on Ukraine, but excludes Russia, North Korea and Cuba

The official explanation is the insignificant amount of imports from Moscow. But they are of the same order of magnitude as those from Kiev and other countries that have been taxed

3 April 2025

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4' min read

"Protected" by sanctions and a derisory interchange: the Russian Federation, next to nations such as Belarus, North Korea and Cuba, does not appear on the list of 185 countries or territories (almost the entire world) that will see their exports to the United States burdened by Donald Trump's tariffs. An absence that is jarring at the moment, not least because it is juxtaposed with the inclusion on the list of Ukraine, as well as other former Soviet republics, from Kazakhstan to Armenia.

The first explanation given stems from the weakness of the interchange between Russia and the United States, which even before the invasion of Ukraine was never comparable to the figures linking Moscow to the European Union or China, its largest trading partner. Last August, Russian exports to the United States fell to their lowest level since January 1993, a volume of $84.4 million. The decline is evident over the years: Russian goods worth $35 billion exported to the US in 2021, $14.44 billion in 2022, $4.57 billion in 2023, $3.5 billion in 2024. "A decline linked to the introduction of sanctions and trade restrictions against Moscow due to the Special Military Operation," summarises Tass referring to the war in Ukraine.

War, sanctions and interchange

To make a comparison relative to 2022, the year of the invasion, at that time the interchange between Russia and China was 190.7 billion dollars, that between Russia and the EU 257.5 billion euros: since then the former has grown to a record 244.8 billion in 2024, the latter has shrunk to 67.6 billion euros. But for the United States, even at a time when Trump is reversing his frustration at the slow pace of the peace process on the threat of new and increasingly severe sanctions on Moscow, the room for manoeuvre is limited even though the American president is reportedly thinking of imposing secondary sanctions against countries that continue to buy Russian oil, starting with India and China.

Russia was excluded from the lista because US sanctions "already preclude any meaningful trade", White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt explained to Axios. For Russia, point out several observers surveyed by the Ria-Novosti agency, the tariffs already in place range from 35 to 200%: the excluded product categories, whether fertilisers or platinum, are strategic and necessary for the US. "In fact, an interchange between Russia and the United States hardly exists," points out Mikhail Zeltzer, a financial analyst. Trade has collapsed since 1992, and there are so many sanctions that introducing more tariffs makes no sense'.

Double standards?

However, the reality, against the backdrop of the rapprochement between Trump and Vladimir Putin, is not only in the figures: the same American publication points out that the list includes countries such as Mauritius or Brunei, or the Svalbard islands, which trade even less with the US than Moscow. If, however, at this stage Trump wants to avoid friction with the Kremlin - a détente witnessed by the presence in Washington of Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's envoy for foreign investments, the first high-ranking official to return to the US since the invasion of Ukraine - the American president may well have excluded Russia from the 'black list' at this stage in order to reserve the right to reinsert it, perhaps with a separate decree, should Putin fail to thaw.

For Ukraine, which was exempt from duties by the previous Biden administration, the inclusion on the White House's list with new tariffs of 10% on exports to America is, on the other hand, a particularly symbolic blow: at a time when the Trump administration is pressing Volodymyr Zelensky to sign the document as soon as possible that would give the US exclusive control over the future exploitation of Ukrainian resources, so as to repay all aid granted since the invasion to date.

Kiev: "Cynicism of the worst kind"

Now the new US duties, said the head of the Tax Commission at the Verkhovna Rada, Daniil Ghetmanzev, will not have much direct impact on Ukraine, since Ukrainian exports to the US in 2024 amounted to only USD 0.9 billion (again, a similar volume to Russia): according to Ghetmanzev, however, the inclusion of Ukraine betrays 'cynicism of the worst kind' given Washington's clear dominance in bilateral trade, where Ukraine is in deficit by $2.6 billion. To all this, the Ukrainian politician explains, one must add the indirect negative impact that will fall on Ukraine due to the foreseeable slowdown in trade and aid with European partners: "They will be forced to take protectionist measures themselves, not only on American goods. And for us it will be a significant blow."

Yuliia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's Minister for the Economy, says she hopes for the possibility of more favourable terms with the US. "Our tariffs on American products are really low: those on cars are at 10%, for coal and oil at zero," Svyrydenko wrote on Facebook. Ukraine - which has steel, behind agriculture, as its second source of income - in particular is hurt by the 25% tariffs imposed in March by the Trump administration on imported steel and aluminium products. One more element to complicate the already quite tormented negotiations between Washington and Kiev over Ukraine's mineral resources.