Trump presses NATO nations to halt Russian oil purchases

“I am ready to do major sanctions on Russia when all NATO nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO nations stop buying oil from Russia,” Trump said in a social media post.

In recent weeks, the U.S. has stepped up pressure on NATO countries to tighten energy sanctions on Russia in a bid to help end its war with Ukraine — a conflict Trump has struggled to bring to a close despite repeated threats of harsher penalties on Moscow and its partners.

Trump has also faced criticism at home for repeatedly setting two-week deadlines for Russia to de-escalate and allowing them to pass without concrete action. An August Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 54% of Americans, including one in five of Trump's Republicans, believe the president is too closely aligned with Russia.

"The EU has engaged - and will continue to engage - with all relevant global partners in the context of its sanctions against Russia, and enforcement of same," a spokesperson for the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said in a statement on Saturday.

EU President Ursula von der Leyen said this week in her State of the Union address that any new sanctions package would be in line with EU rules, including "the long-held principle that our sanctions do not apply extra-territorially."

The Group of Seven nations' finance ministers in a Friday call discussed further sanctions on Russia and possible tariffs on countries they consider "enabling" its war in Ukraine.

Energy revenues remain the Kremlin’s single most important source of cash to finance the war effort, making oil and gas exports a central target of Western sanctions. But officials and analysts warn that aggressive curbs on Russian crude also carry risks of driving up global oil prices, a prospect that could strain Western economies and weaken public support for the measures.

Since 2023, NATO member Turkey has been the third-largest buyer of Russian oil, after China and India, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Other members of the 32-state alliance involved in purchasing Russian oil include Hungary and Slovakia.

Trump, who is spending the weekend at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, said NATO, acting as a bloc, should impose tariffs of 50% to 100% on Chinese imports, a move he argued would weaken Beijing’s economic grip on Moscow.

Trump has imposed an extra 25% tariff on imports from India to pressure New Delhi to halt its purchases of discounted Russian crude oil, bringing total punitive duties on Indian goods to 50% and souring trade negotiations between the two democracies.

But Trump has refrained from imposing additional tariffs on Chinese imports over China's purchases of Russian oil, as his administration navigates a delicate trade truce with Beijing.