“Just as certain classes of medication are sometimes in vogue and prescribed to help with all kinds of ailments, it seems that US President Donald Trump and his team have stumbled upon a magical remedy for all the world’s problems: tariffs,” said Sergey Vakulenko, an independent energy analyst and consultant to a number of Russian and international global oil and gas companies in a note for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“With all the attention on Trump’s April 2 unveiling of “reciprocal” tariffs and its aftermath, the announcement of a novel economic statecraft tool, secondary tariffs, is going almost unnoticed,” says Vaklulenko.

Thanks to Russia’s shadow fleet, it has proven almost impossible to apply sanctions to Russia’s oil exports. The EU tried with its twin sanctions at the end of 2022, but as bne IntelliNews reported those are a spent cannon and barely affected exports that simply switched from Europe to Asia.

“In the three years since the beginning of the war, it has become clear that it is almost impossible to stop the Russian oil trade by going after Russian sellers or a myriad of shippers and payment intermediaries,” says Vakulenko. “But it was also clear that for any such mechanism to work, it would be necessary to destroy demand for Russian oil outside the sanctions framework and thus go after the buyers.”

In December 2023, the US started imposing the so-called strangulation sanctions, secondary sanctions that targeted individual shipping companies and tankers. Those have proven to be a lot more effective, building up to the harshest oil sanctions yet released as the Biden administration was headed for the door in December last year.

Trump’s team has the option of extending these secondary sanctions to more tankers in the Russian shadow fleet and dramatically disrupting oil exports, but what they appear to be contemplating is even more radical: hitting the entire economy of Russia’s oil customers with extreme tariffs if they continue to buy Russian crude.

It’s not going to work, says Vakulenko. These sweeping punitive duties, which target countries rather than companies, risk igniting a trade war that could ripple across global markets without delivering the intended geopolitical leverage, according to Vakulenko.

“Tariffs are rather blunt and long-term measures, ill-suited to be used as tactical weapons in a mediation attempt to push a less willing party to the negotiating table,” Vakulenko said.

The new mechanism, advanced by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, turns the previous logic on its head. It would apply duties on all US imports from countries purchasing Russian oil, notably China, India and Turkey—each with substantial state-backed refining sectors.

The idea is to force Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand. “The weapon is not targeted at the Russians, nor at companies buying from the Russians, but at the buyer’s compatriots who export goods to America,” he noted. “By the time [the message] gets there, the circumstances might have changed several times, making the message obsolete.”

On the face of it the idea is appealingly simple: compel compliance with US foreign policy objectives through economic pain, while potentially generating revenue rather than spending on complex sanctions enforcement.

But Vakulenko warns that this could backfire: “Even current levels of tariffs could hurt American buyers just as much as overseas sellers,” Vakulenko observed, raising concerns over supply chain disruptions that will spike oil prices and fuelling already high domestic inflationary pressures in the US.

In addition, the US would have to impose secondary sanctions on state-owned refineries in China and India that are bound to cause a retaliation, as these objects are core to national energy security, and so significantly escalate the scale of the trade war crisis.

At its core, the policy gambles on the assumption that global demand can wean itself off Russian oil completely – something that is far from clear. Russia continues to produce just under 10mbpd of oil, of which it exports around half, making it a major supply to the oil market.

“Even if the secondary tariffs were to scare off buyers, it is still unclear whether the world can really afford to manage without Russian oil exports,” says Vakulenko, who argues that the drop in oil revenues would certainly hurt the Russian economy, where oil accounts for between 20%-30% of revenues, but not bring it to its knees, while high oil prices will also hurt the sanctioners.

“The ensuing global fuel shortage might be partially alleviated by Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” Vakulenko stated, “but would certainly make itself felt.”

Should countries defy the tariffs under pressure to secure energy supplies, Washington would face an unenviable choice: enforce punitive m

“Just as certain classes of medication are sometimes in vogue and prescribed to help with all kinds of ailments, it seems that US President Donald Trump and his team have stumbled upon a magical remedy for all the world’s problems: tariffs,” said Sergey Vakulenko, an independent energy analyst and consultant to a number of Russian and international global oil and gas companies, in a note for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“With all the attention on Trump’s April 2 unveiling of “reciprocal” tariffs and its aftermath, the announcement of a novel economic statecraft tool, secondary tariffs, is going almost unnoticed,” says Vaklulenko.

Thanks to Russia’s shadow fleet, it has proved almost impossible to apply sanctions to Moscow’s oil exports. The EU tried with its twin sanctions at the end of 2022, but as bne IntelliNews reported, those are a spent cannon and barely affected exports that simply switched from Europe to Asia.

“In the three years since the beginning of the war, it has become clear that it is almost impossible to stop the Russian oil trade by going after Russian sellers or a myriad of shippers and payment intermediaries,” says Vakulenko. “But it was also clear that for any such mechanism to work, it would be necessary to destroy demand for Russian oil outside the sanctions framework and thus go after the buyers.”

In December 2023, the US started imposing the so-called strangulation sanctions, secondary sanctions that targeted individual shipping companies and tankers. Those have proved to be a lot more effective, building up to the harshest oil sanctions yet released as the Biden administration was headed for the door in December last year.

Trump’s team has the option of extending these secondary sanctions to more tankers in the Russian shadow fleet and dramatically disrupting oil exports, but what they appear to be contemplating is even more radical: hitting the entire economy of Russia’s oil customers with extreme tariffs if they continue to buy Russian crude.

It’s not going to work, says Vakulenko. These sweeping punitive duties, which target countries rather than companies, risk igniting a trade war that could ripple across global markets without delivering the intended geopolitical leverage, according to Vakulenko.

“Tariffs are rather blunt and long-term measures, ill-suited to be used as tactical weapons in a mediation attempt to push a less willing party to the negotiating table,” Vakulenko said.

The new mechanism, advanced by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, turns the previous logic on its head. It would apply duties on all US imports from countries purchasing Russian oil, notably China, India and Turkey –each with substantial state-backed refining sectors.

The idea is to force Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand. “The weapon is not targeted at the Russians, nor at companies buying from the Russians, but at the buyer’s compatriots who export goods to America,” he noted. “By the time [the message] gets there, the circumstances might have changed several times, making the message obsolete.”

On the face of it the idea is appealingly simple: compel compliance with US foreign policy objectives through economic pain, while potentially generating revenue rather than spending on complex sanctions enforcement.

But Vakulenko warns that this could backfire: “Even current levels of tariffs could hurt American buyers just as much as overseas sellers,” Vakulenko observed, raising concerns over supply chain disruptions that will spike oil prices and fuelling already high domestic inflationary pressures in the US.

In addition, the US would have to impose secondary sanctions on state-owned refineries in China and India that are bound to cause a retaliation, as these objects are core to national energy security, and so significantly escalate the scale of the trade war crisis.

At its core, the policy gambles on the assumption that global demand can wean itself off Russian oil completely – something that is far from clear. Russia continues to produce just under 10mn barrels per day (bpd) of oil, of which it exports around half, making it a major supply to the oil market.

“Even if the secondary tariffs were to scare off buyers, it is still unclear whether the world can really afford to manage without Russian oil exports,” says Vakulenko, who argues that the drop in oil revenues would certainly hurt the Russian economy, where oil accounts for between 20%-30% of revenues, but not bring it to its knees, while high oil prices will also hurt the sanctioners.

“The ensuing global fuel shortage might be partially alleviated by Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” Vakulenko stated, “but would certainly make itself felt.”

Should countries defy the tariffs under pressure to secure energy supplies, Washington would face an unenviable choice: enforce punitive measures and deepen a potential crisis, or retreat and risk undermining its economic statecraft. “It looks like a lose-lose proposition, and a dilemma that would be best avoided,” Vakulenko concluded.

easures and deepen a potential crisis, or retreat and risk undermining its economic statecraft. “It looks like a lose-lose proposition, and a dilemma that would be best avoided,” Vakulenko concluded.