The United States and China may have agreed to a temporary pause in their escalating tariff battle, but the underlying trade war shows no signs of abating. While markets remain wary of further shocks, one country – Russia – stands to benefit from the fraying ties between Washington and Beijing. The problem, however, is that Moscow may be unable to capitalise on the opportunities the trade spat has opened up.

“Russia and the United States export a lot of the same goods to China: chiefly oil, gas and coal,” says Mikhail Korostikov, a sinologist and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in a paper. “But with both sides having introduced tariffs in February, US energy exports to China have effectively collapsed.”

The halt in trade between the US and China is not permanent yet. Both sides are working on some sort of compromise and the flow of goods between them may resume. However, if the halt carries on for a long time, Russian companies will happily try to step into the breach and could replace much of the trade China previously enjoyed with the US.

If Moscow were to fully replace US volumes, Korostikov notes, China would end up sourcing over 30% of its gas and nearly 20% of its oil and coal from Russia. That would generate an additional $14.7bn in revenue – if energy prices hold steady. Yet in practice, Russia faces major infrastructural and logistical constraints.

“China wants to diversify its imports as much as possible,” says Korostikov. “Letting Russia cover over 30% of its gas and 20% of its oil needs is far from ideal for Beijing.” Not only is China deepening energy ties with countries such as Kazakhstan and Australia, it is also accelerating its investment in renewables, reducing overall demand for fossil fuel imports.

Infrastructure is another obstacle. “Land routes for oil deliveries are already at capacity,” Korostikov explains. While sea shipments could increase, the economics are difficult – particularly in winter – and Russia’s tanker fleet remains limited. “The Northern Sea Route helps in summer, but it’s not a year-round solution.”

Gas poses an even bigger problem. “Pipeline volumes are fixed by contract, and rail capacity is tight,” he says. Russia has already massively reorientated its land-based trade to the east, but the rail system is already running at capacity. Talks over the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline remain stalled, with China showing little interest in boosting supply to its underpopulated northern regions, where alternatives from Central Asia are readily available. New gas deals with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have reversed the flows in the Soviet-era pipelines and volumes sent on to China via this southern route are growing rapidly.

For LNG, the challenges are compounded by sanctions, Arctic navigation issues, and fleet size. While new LNG capacity in both the US and Qatar is in development, Korostikov argues that for now, “it’s easier for China to buy from the Middle East, Australia or Myanmar.”

Coal offers no easy wins either. “Low prices, long distances and capacity limits at ports and on the railways all weigh against Russia,” says Korostikov.

Agriculture presents a similar picture. The United States exported $27bn of agricultural products to China in 2024, while Russia managed just $7.4bn. “In agriculture, Russia simply cannot compete,” he says. Short growing seasons, low yields and insufficient logistics infrastructure make Russian exports less attractive than those from Brazil or Kazakhstan, which have simpler logistics to get their goods to the Chinese market.

Some suggest China could redirect surplus goods originally bound for the US to Russia, potentially at reduced prices. Korostikov is sceptical. “Russia lacks the market capacity to absorb those goods,” he says. “There are also labour shortages and weak industrial processing. Plus, US secondary sanctions have deterred nearly all Chinese banks from working directly with Russian clients.”

Indeed, as of mid-2024, 98% of Chinese banks had ceased accepting direct payments from Russian companies, afraid of bringing down secondary sanctions on themselves at a time when Sino-US trade remains significant. Average financial transaction processing times have stretched out to 18 days as Chinese and Russian banks try to find workarounds. “A total collapse in US-China trade could change that,” Korostikov notes, adding that if there is no prospect of trade resuming then Chinese banks would no longer care about US secondary sanctions, “but only if Beijing decides to disregard US sanctions altogether.”

Even if Russia does not see an immediate trade surge with China, the longer the conflict between Washington and Beijing drags on, the more strategically valuable Moscow becomes to China. “The foundation of warming ties over the past 30 years has been Russian energy delivered via routes unreachable by US aircraft carriers,” Korostikov says. “That’s more important than ever.”

Politically, the advantages are clearer. “The worse US-China relations become, the more important Russia looks to Beijing,” he adds. “Moscow may finally gain some leverage in a relationship that has become increasingly asymmetrical.”

Some have argued that US President Donald Trump is following a “reverse Nixon” policy of trying to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow; however, the Liberation Day tariff attack will have the opposite effect if it persists, driving the Chinese and Russians closer together than ever, as well as fuelling every closer cooperation amongst groups like the G20 and BRICS+, in Trump’s transactional multipolar world model.

Washington’s focus on tariffs and restrictions as tools to curb China’s technological rise also plays into the Kremlin’s hands. “Every step the US takes in this direction makes Moscow more appealing as a partner,” Korostikov says.

Longer term, the real shift may be in global perceptions. “The trade war marks a break with the US tradition of values-based coalitions,” he says. “Now, Washington’s favour depends on how many American goods a country buys and its willingness to endure public humiliation from Donald Trump.”

For many in the Global South, that shift is significant and also plays to Putin’s big bet on the Global South century. “It makes the war in Ukraine look less like a moral battle and more like a geopolitical turf war,” Korostikov concludes. The knee-jerk reaction of most Global South countries to the US tariffs onslaught has been to deepen trade ties with each other. Even the EU has been flirting with Global South countries, and China in particular, in an effort to diversify trade away from the US. “In that case, it becomes easier for third countries to ignore the conflict and continue trading with both sides.”