President Donald Trump is preparing to announce new secondary tariffs Friday on nations who conduct trade with Russia amid its deadly war in Ukraine.
The White House has remained tight-lipped on what those tariffs will look like after the president first said in July they would amount to “100%” tariffs before causing confusion earlier this week when he told reporters he “never said a percentage.”
While the specifics of what tax rates nations that trade with Russia could face remain unclear, Trump’s change in posture toward Russian President Vladimir Putin has become increasingly evident.
President Donald Trump, right, meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on the first day of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. (Kremlin Press Office/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
“It is going to be another factor that’s going to pressure Putin to agree to a ceasefire. I don’t know if that’s going to happen immediately or in a few months, but I think it is going to put real pressure, inflict real pain on Russia,” Fleitz said.
Once a staunch Trump ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R- Ga., took to X this week in response to a post by Trump that he would be enforcing tariffs on India for purchasing Russian oil and said, “End Indian H1-B visas replacing American jobs instead and stop funding and sending weapons to the Obama/Biden/Neocon Ukraine Russia war.”
Trump’s favorable transition toward Ukraine and European allies has also ruffled some MAGA feathers, though security experts have argued it has given the president better leverage to take on major adversaries like Putin, and by extension, China.
President Donald Trump, right, and Mark Rutte, NATO secretary general, shake hands during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., July 14, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Diplomacy and negotiations are a good thing,” said Fleitz, who serves as vice chair of the America First Policy Institute’s Center for American Security. “Peacemaking takes time, and the U.S.-Russia relationship was in a very bad situation when Trump came to office.
“I think these sanctions will hurt Russia very badly,” Fleitz continued. “The fact that Trump knows that secondary sanctions on India has, at least temporarily, hurt our relationship is really a remarkable sign of how committed Trump is to these sanctions.
“There’s not going to be exceptions. It’s not going to be some type of soft strategy with all kinds of loopholes,” he added. “I think it shows to Putin how serious Trump is, and it gives Trump leverage to negotiate with Putin.”
