नवीनतम
NATO warns India, China & Brazil over Russia trade
NEW DELHI [Maha Media]: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has threatened that countries such as India, China and Brazil could be hit very hard by secondary sanctions if they continued to do business with Russia.
"President Trump said that if Russia is not serious about peace talks within 50 days, he will slam secondary sanctions on countries like India, China and Brazil. So my encouragement to these three countries, particularly is, if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard," Rutte told reporters on Tuesday.
"So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin," he added. Rutte said that the US will now supply Ukraine with weapons "not just air defense, also missiles, also ammunition, paid for by the Europeans."
Referring to Donald Trump's threat to Russia's trading partners, the NATO Secretary General said, "If you are the president of China, or the prime minister of India, or the president of Brazil, and you are still trading with the Russians, and getting your oil and gas in, and sometimes you even resell it for a higher price - know that if this guy in Moscow doesn't get serious about peace talks, I will slam secondary sanctions on you of 100%."
Trump is threatening to hit Russia's trading partners with tariffs of up to 100 percent if Moscow does not end its war on Ukraine by the beginning of September. It would have an enormous impact on the economies of India, China and Brazil, which account for the vast majority of Russia’s energy trade.
India is Russia's third-biggest trade partner, with exchanges totalling $68 billion in the year to May, according to Bruegel think tank. Russian exports to India -- primarily fossil fuels -- accounts for 90 percent of that. India is the biggest buyer of Russian oil in the world. India's exports to Russia are essentially nuclear reactors, machinery and pharmaceutical compounds.
China is by far Russia's biggest trading partner, with annual import and export flows between the two totalling nearly $240 billion according to the think tank. That Brussels-based institute has been piecing together monthly trade figures for Russia since that country in April 2022 ceased publishing detailed figures as it came under sanctions for its all-out invasion of Ukraine.
China accounts for 48 percent of Russia's trade flows, according to Bruegel. In the year to May 2025, Russia exported $125 billion in goods including natural gas and oil, medical equipment and chemical products. Its imports from China amounted to $113 billion, mainly steel, equipment, electronics and textiles.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian, responding to Trump's threat on Tuesday, said his country's position on Ukraine had always been "clear and consistent -- we have always believed that dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis". China "firmly opposes all illegal unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction", he said, adding: "There are no winners in a tariff war."
