Today, the White House came up with an explanation for this. They said Russia is excluded from the tariffs “due to the ongoing peace negotiations with Ukraine and Russia”.1]
This is, of course, bullshit — if the goal is to “not go too hard on Russia” during negotiations, why not extend the same courtesy to Ukraine, the other participant in negotiations?
But Ukraine was hit with 10% tariffs on all goods at the same time Russia was excluded. This is absolute nonsense. The good news is, oil prices dropped and Russia was hit with some economic blowback. But this does not appear to have been intentional.
White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said:
“It’s not appropriate to throw a new thing into these negotiations right in the middle of it. It's just not.”
Okay cool story bro, if it’s “not appropriate” to throw a new thing into negotiations, then why the hell did you still put tariffs on Ukraine? Would love to see some of Trump’s biggest MAGA supporters explain away this one. Particularly the ones who are also pro-Ukraine at the same time — believe it or not, there are some here on Quora who still walk that desperate tightrope — curious to see how they defend this utter bullshit.
You can’t claim additional tariffs on Russia are somehow “unfair” and would “hurt negotiations” while at the same time throwing heavy tariffs on Ukraine, hurting Ukraine’s embattled economy even further. This is preposterous, nonsensical and some of the most mentally challenged “negotiating” I have ever witnessed.
Footnotes
[1] Russia excluded from US tariff list due to ongoing ceasefire negotiations, White House says
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