Initially spared from tariffs imposed by Trump, Russia has been put on alert due to the US trade war. However, the market turmoil could generate geopolitical opportunities for Moscow and its allies.
When announcing his new tariff policy, US President Donald Trump spared Russia, Belarus, Cuba and North Korea. He claimed that these countries already face too many sanctions, making their bilateral trade with Washington minimal.
It was soon speculated that the real reason for not including Russia was the current close ties between Trump and Putin, with the negotiations on the Ukraine war as a backdrop, especially given some inconsistencies in the US president’s arguments.
In fact, after the start of the war in Ukraine, the trade influx between Washington and Moscow decreased by 80%, but the US still has a trade deficit with Russia of about US$ 2.5 billion, a higher figure than that with other countries that also suffer from heavy US sanctions and which Trump included in his “tariff list”.
Trump later backed down and declared a 90-day pause in the new so-called “reciprocal tariffs” for most countries, except China, against whom the US escalated trade tensions even further after Beijing’s retaliatory measures. Last Friday (11), China raised its tariffs on US imports to 125%, a day after Donald Trump increased the minimum tariff on Chinese imports to 145%.
How does the US-China tension affect Russia?
Regardless of being off the US tariff list, the turmoil in the world market has not gone unnoticed by Russia, which has expressed serious concerns about the effect the measures could have on its economy. The head of Russia’s Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, said that “tectonic shifts in global trade are unfolding before our eyes, and it is still very difficult to assess where they will take the world economy and how they will affect Russia”. “This is a significant new risk that we must consider,” she said.
One of the risks is that Trump’s tariff war targets Moscow’s main partner. Amid Western sanctions against Moscow, China has become Russia’s main trading and strategic partner. In 2024, the volume of trade between the two countries reached a new record of US$ 244.8 billion. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized Trump’s measures.
“Regarding the so-called tariff war between the United States and China, we would like to point out that any shocks to the world economy – which threaten to slow down its growth rates and the general decline in consumption – negatively impact many global processes. The situation is of particular concern when it involves the world’s two largest economies,” she said.
According to the diplomat, the White House’s latest tariff decision “goes against the fundamental rules of the WTO” and “shows that Washington no longer considers itself bound by the rules of international trade law.”
For Russia, the first economic warning sign of the US tariff war is the oil price, which has fallen sharply in recent days to its lowest level in years. Oil exports are fundamental to the Russian economy, and the rise in the price of a barrel in recent years has helped to maintain economic stability in the country, even with all the Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
In an interview with Brasil de Fato, the chief analyst of Russia’s National Energy Security Fund, Igor Ushkov, stated that the scenario may prompt a budget deficit higher than planned.
“The application of tariffs by the US against other countries is negative for Russia. The price of oil has fallen, which for us is an indirect effect. It is assumed that the tariffs can slow down trade between various countries, the production of goods will decrease and so will supply. And the use of fuels for supply will also decrease, which leads to a surplus on the market, making prices fall,” he explains.
The analyst stressed that, at the peak, the price of oil barrels fell to around US$50, while Russia’s budget for 2025 is calculated to be in the range of US$$69-67 a barrel, and at an exchange rate of 96 rubles to the US dollar. “In practice, we should sell our oil for around 6,700 rubles a barrel, but we sell it for around 5,000 a barrel. This means Russia will have a bigger budget deficit than planned,” he adds.
The Ukraine negotiations factor
The reason the US president didn’t include Russia on the tariff list goes beyond the claim of low trade volume. One of the priorities of the country’s foreign policy is the resolution of the war in Ukraine, and in this sense, Trump needs to avoid premature attrition, so as to increase the chances of a peace agreement in the future.
In other words, applying additional tariffs against Russia at this time could make things even more difficult with Moscow, throwing away a possibility that the White House can still use when direct negotiations with Moscow on the war enter a more problematic time.
Thus, nothing rules out the possibility of the US including Russia in further sanctions if Vladimir Putin doesn’t accept US and Ukrainian terms for a possible ceasefire. After all, Trump already threatened Russia with more sanctions on Russian oil the last time Putin imposed conditions on the maritime truce between Kyiv and Moscow.
Betting on a rapprochement with China
On the other hand, for Ushkov, Trump’s trade war could also have the opposite geopolitical effect for the US, strengthening the alliance between Global South countries and undermining US geopolitical intentions.
According to the Russian analyst, “Donald Trump’s radical and eccentric stances, his announced trade war against the whole world, even though he backed down afterwards, in any case, is a sign that the US is becoming an increasingly unreliable partner.”
“Before, we saw the US as a military and political threat; now we see that the US is showcasing an economic war against the whole world, regardless of whether it is an ally or not. All this weakens US authority and more and more countries understand that an alternative economic system is needed,” he says.
Russian officials are also expressing optimism that the trade tensions between the US and China could open a window of opportunity for the Chinese economy to seek out new sustainable areas of cooperation and increase it with the Russian market.
That’s what Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said, pointing out that, in the context of trade wars around the world, Russia and China could set a new record for trade volume and their relations could become even stronger.
Igor Ushkov also points out that more and more countries worldwide are realizing that it is no longer reliable to have a global financial architecture based on the hegemony of the US dollar and that national currencies should be used for international trade.
“There needs to be a backup system for bank transfers beyond Swfit, and there needs to be card payment systems that aren’t just Visa and Mastercard. That’s why the current situation ends up giving space for a multipolar world in both politics and economics,” he adds.
In this context, the analyst also believes in closer relations between Moscow and Beijing. He explained that “China understands that the pressure against it will grow anyway, and the US sees it as the only global adversary and puts pressure on China in every way possible.”
“China must diversify its economy and foreign policy, and interact with Russia, for example, in a bolder way. Russia can offer a secure supply of energy resources because competition and confrontation with the US will sooner or later lead to the US trying to undermine Chinese resources and attempting to block everything that comes to it from the South, the Middle East, and Africa.”
“Russia can provide its alternative supply from the north. It’s a much more reliable route. There are direct routes from the north, through Kazakhstan or Mongolia. That’s why this US confrontation should push China to seek an economic relationship with minimal political risks,” he adds.
