NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has warned India, Brazil, and China with ‘100 per cent secondary tariffs’ over links with Russia and said the three BRICS nations should lean on President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire.
Rutte’s remark comes after US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he was giving Putin 50 days to enter into peace talks with Ukraine or face what he called “secondary tariffs” of 100% as well as secondary sanctions.
“My encouragement to these three countries, particularly, is if you live now in Beijing or Delhi, or you’re the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard,” the NATO chief told reporters on Tuesday, as reported by Bloomberg.
“So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks, because otherwise this will slam back on Brazil, on India and China in a massive way,” he said.
While Trump did not name India, China, or Brazil, these countries have continued to trade oil and petroleum products with Russia in the years since Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine in 2022.
American senators are pushing for a bill that calls for 500 per cent tariffs on countries involved in trade with Russia.
“We’ll continue to push for Senator Graham & my Russia Sanctions bill with even tougher penalties to deter India, China, Brazil & others from fueling Putin’s war machine,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said in a post on X.
The announcement comes as India and the US hold talks on a trade deal to waive off the import tariffs imposed by Trump.
On Tuesday, the US President claimed that Washington is making significant strides toward securing access to Indian markets, crediting his aggressive tariff strategy for paving the way for the same.
Speaking to reporters after announcing a trade deal with Indonesia, Trump shared an update on talks with India, which hit a rock bottom as New Delhi remained firm on its key demands, especially the agricultural sector.
“We’re going to have access to India. You have to understand, we had no access to any of these countries. Our people couldn’t go in, and now we’re getting access because of what we’re doing with the tariffs,” Trump told reporters.
