Understanding Trump’s Seemingly Evolving Stance On Russia-Ukraine War

So, on July 30th, President Trump announced a 25% tariff on Indian exports to the US, that took effect on August 1^st. Among the reasons cited for this tariff were high Indian tariffs on US goods and non-tariff trade barriers, together with India’s continued purchase of Russian oil and arms, which was very unusual.

This is because, until then, the United States, irrespective of its ruling dispensation was known to have been exempting India from its sanctions regime directed towards Iran and Russia, which includes the first Trump administration as well.

Thereafter, on August 6^th, Trump signed another executive order imposing an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods specifically as a punitive measure against India’s purchase of Russian oil, bringing the total US tariffs on Indian goods to 50%. This second round of tariffs took effect on August 27^th.

Now, this was the Trump administration’s first major move toward cutting down Russia’s revenue from energy exports that have been critical to sustaining its wartime economy, as India has historically been able to manage excellent ties with both the US and Russia, and now if Trump is willing to punish even India for buying Russian oil, then it is hard to imagine other countries would escape his ire.

That said, the Trump administration has refrained so far from imposing similar punitive tariffs on other countries that are also buying large volumes of Russian energy which include China, the European Union (EU), Turkey, and South Korea.

However, per the recent media reports, President Trump has been urging the EU to impose up to 100% tariffs on Chinese and Indian goods to push both countries to reduce their energy purchases from Russia. It remains to be seen if the EU, which is apparently reluctant to alienate China and India, eventually acquiesces to Trump’s demands.

It is also important to point out, though, that following the Trump administration’s tariffs on India to pressure the latter to cut down its import of Russian energy, reports began emerging of Indian refiners, both state-owned and private – slowly diversifying their purchases of crude oil by buying from other countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Azerbaijan and Nigeria.¹

So, weaponization of tariffs is one lever that Trump administration is using to cut off Russia’s revenues from energy exports by reducing its demand on the global energy market.

And, according to the Author, providing Ukraine with the targeting intelligence and possibly even long-range attack weapons to strike Russia’s energy infrastructure is another lever that Trump administration is using in a bid to weaken the supply side of Russia’s energy sector.

As stated earlier, Ukraine has been undertaking concerted attacks on Russia’s oil and gas installations but these attacks are primarily being carried out using drones which cannot carry as much payload as missiles can, and are therefore only able to damage these facilities at best.

Not to belittle their disruptive impact on Russia’s industry and the overall economy but the damages from these attacks do not exactly hurt the country’s state budget or its earnings from energy exports in a big way.  

For instance, in August, the Ukrainian armed forces struck an oil refinery near Volgograd using drones which only caused damage enough to halt its operations for a month, per a BBC report.

Hence, targeting intelligence from the US can enable the Ukrainian armed forces to increase the lethality of their attacks by focussing them on the weak nodes of Russia’s energy infrastructure.

Moreover, if the United States does indeed provide Ukraine with long-range weapons with unitary warheads that pack a huge punch, the Ukrainian armed forces will be able to entirely destroy Russia’s energy facilities. Also, several of Russia’s energy installations that were earlier off-limits to the Ukrainian drones, would now become possible to strike upon, with long-range precision missiles from the US.

That said, Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles (TLAM), which as stated earlier has a range of around 1609.34 km and armed with a roughly 454 kg unitary warhead, will not be among the weapons that would be used for such strikes, as has been confirmed by the US’ special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, in his interview with Fox News on September 27^th.

In fact, at this point, it is not possible to surely say if Ukraine would even receive Tomahawks, particularly the ground-launched variant, as the US itself only has two operational batteries of this variant. As for the ship- and submarine-launched variants, Ukraine’s navy possesses neither surface combatants nor attack submarines, and it is unlikely that the US will provide its own ships or submarines to Ukraine at a time when the country is grappling with Navy its worst shipbuilding crisis.²

Per the recent media reports, Tomahawk are only one of the long-range missile options that the Trump Administration is considering for potential transfer to Ukraine. Other options reportedly under consideration include the Barracuda-500 from Anduril Industries, which can reach targets as far as 500 miles (or 804.67 km) and is designed to carry a warhead of about 100 pounds (approximately 45.36 kg).

Overall, though, the prospect of entire refineries, pipelines and other infrastructure getting taken out of commission by Ukraine’s long-range strikes aided by the US’ targeting intelligence and/or long-range munitions, should be an alarming one for Russia.

In addition to that, with the help of US’ intelligence support and possibly even long-range weapons, Ukraine can conduct more of ‘Operation Spider’s Web’-styled offensive actions targeting military facilities deep inside Russia that could be housing some strategically valuable assets like the Tu-95 strategic bombers, Tu-22M aircraft and airborne early warning planes that were destroyed in Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web on June 1^st.

If such massive attacks deep inside Russia increase in frequency and possibly even scale, they could significantly undermine Russia’s confidence in the war’s long-term trajectory, forcing it to reconsider its maximalist demands as well as its decision to prolong this war further to accomplish its objectives on the ground if its demands are not conceded to, by Ukraine.

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