According to a Financial Times disclosure, during a Tuesday meeting in Washington where senior U.S. and EU officials aimed to force an end to the Russia-Ukraine war through maximum pressure on Moscow, President Donald Trump made an extraordinary demand: he wants the EU to slap 100% tariffs on India and China—two major buyers of Russian energy—to compel Russia to quickly terminate the conflict.
Both British outlets say the report has been corroborated by multiple officials on each side of the Atlantic.
While Washington signalled it would take parallel action against India and China, the dispatches make clear the U.S. wants the EU to fire the first shot—hitting the two Asian giants and only then having America follow suit. The FT explicitly cites U.S. diplomats in Europe stressing that Washington will move only after Brussels does.
The paper adds, however, that the EU is uneasy about wielding tariffs against New Delhi and Beijing. Both are major trading partners for Europe, and some member-states still import Russian energy themselves.
Separately, Trump posted Tuesday that trade talks with India are under way and that he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi “within weeks.”
