US President Donald Trump called for the EU to hit China and India with tariffs of up to 100% on imports in an effort to force Moscow to end its war in Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on September 8.

The US president made the demand during a phone call about boosting sanctions between senior American and European officials in Washington according to three officials familiar with the discussions, the FT reported.

“We’re ready to go, ready to go right now, but we’re only going to do this if our European partners step up with us,” one US official said. Another official added that Washington was prepared to “mirror” any EU tariffs on China and India, potentially leading to further increases in US duties on imports from both countries.

“The president came on this morning and his view is that the obvious approach here is, let’s all put on dramatic tariffs and keep the tariffs on until the Chinese agree to stop buying the oil. There really aren’t many other places that oil can go,” the first official added.

Earlier Trump set an August 15 deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to start ceasefire talks or face 100% tariffs that would also be applied to Russia’s crude oil customers. That deadline was allowed to pass after Putin agreed to meet Trump at the Alaska summit on August 15.

However, before the meeting in Anchorage, Trump doubled tariffs on India to 50%, imposing an extra 25% as punishment for continuing to import Russian oil. New Delhi defied the White House and said it would boost imports of Russian oil.

The deadline for China to stop Russian oil imports was shifted to November, but few analysts expect Beijing to comply. Since taking office, Trump has set and then ignored at least seven deadlines and to date has imposed no new sanctions on Russia whatsoever. The call on Europe to impose tariffs on China and India appears to be a tactic for the Trump administration to avoid acting directly against Russia once again.

Nevertheless, the White House has become increasingly frustrated over stalled peace efforts and as Russia intensifies aerial assaults on Ukraine. Trump told reporters on September 9 he expected to speak with Putin “this week or early next week”.

The threat of new sanctions comes a week after the SCO summit where leaders from the Global South gathered in China to band together in the face of the US’ aggressive trade policies. It was followed this week by an emergency virtual BRICS summit called by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with the same goal.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that trade talks with India were continuing on September 9 and would “have a successful conclusion”. He added: “India, and the United States of America, are continuing negotiations to address the Trade Barriers between our two Nations. I look forward to speaking with my very good friend, Prime Minister Modi, in the upcoming weeks.”

The EU delegation in Washington was led by the bloc’s sanctions envoy David O’Sullivan, alongside senior US Treasury officials.

The EU has also been discussing introducing for the first time ever secondary sanctions on countries buying Russian oil and gas as part of the nineteenth sanctions package currently under debate. The US has made wide and effective use of secondary sanctions, but the EU has relied on direct sanctions in all of its previous eighteen rounds of sanctions.

US diplomats highlighted to European leaders that the Trump administration remains very unwilling to impose punitive measures on buyers of Russian energy without EU participation. Europe remains highly dependent on the import of Russian gas and oil. The COW Paris summit last week ended in disaster after Trump failed to back EU plans to send peacekeepers to Ukraine and instead berated them for continuing to import Russian oil and gas. Europe remains hooked on Russian gas despite plans to phase out imports completely by 2028.

“It’s a question of, do the Europeans have the political will to bring the war to an end?” a US official told the FT. “Any of these things will of course be costly, and for the president to do it, we need our EU partners and ideally all of our partners with us. And we’ll share the pain together.”