Why Hasn't Trump Imposed Tariffs on Russia?

Why hasn't Trump imposed tariffs on Russia as he did on the rest of the world? White House Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett responded to this controversial question, stating that Russia was not included in the new tariff list because Washington is negotiating with it to resolve the Ukrainian conflict.

"Obviously, there are ongoing negotiations with Russia and Ukraine, and I think President Donald Trump has made a decision not to conflate the two issues. That doesn't mean that Russia will be treated any differently than any other country," Hassett said during an interview with ABC News.

He pointed out that the issue is about saving the lives lost by the parties to the conflict, so raising the issue of tariffs while trying to achieve peace would be counterproductive, he said.

The Wall Street Journal questioned, in a report on Saturday, why Russia was excluded from the US president's new tariff list, despite its $2.5 billion trade surplus with the United States.

The newspaper reported that Moscow was excluded from a list of dozens of countries with much smaller trade imbalances with the United States, but was nevertheless subject to tariffs of up to 50%.

On April 2, the US president announced the imposition of reciprocal tariffs on imports from other countries. The base rate will be a minimum of 10%. However, almost every country will face an increase in the rate, calculated based on indicators of the US's trade deficit with a given country to achieve balance.

According to Trump, imposing the tariffs would be a declaration of US economic independence and would help free up massive funds to pay off the national debt.

The new tariffs were also not imposed on Russia and Belarus. According to Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russia was not included on the list because it does not have any tangible trade with the United States.

However, he acknowledged that the tariffs imposed on other countries would not be in Russia's interest and that caution was needed to minimize the potential impact of these measures on the national economy.