NEW YORK - Washington's planned sanctions against countries that buy Russian energy will hurt the U.S. economy, CNN reported, citing experts.
Earlier, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs of up to 100 % on buyers of Russian oil if there is no deal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine within days. As the TV channel points out, US special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff is currently on a visit to Russia.
"However, if peace in Ukraine remains remote and Trump follows through with his plan, this new threat could hit the US economy itself - through more expensive consumer goods, lower profit margins for US companies and possibly higher oil prices," CNN reports, citing analysts.
Specifically Clayton Seigle, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (designated as a non-profit organization in Russia), believes that the planned tariffs "would lead to higher inflation" in the US and would also bring higher import costs for US firms. CNN notes that the tariffs would mainly affect imports from India and China, which have recently become the main buyers of Russian oil.
According to Giovanni Staunov, a commodities analyst at UBS Wealth Management, additional tariffs on Chinese goods, which already amount to 30 %, would likely increase the prices of U.S. consumer goods such as iPhones, and "American consumers would be upset". The analyst also said that Beijing probably doubts that Trump would "has been able to bear the economic pain it will cause in the long term", adding that the US president could lift these repressive measures soon after they are introduced. Staunovo also noted that the volumes of oil that Russia exports are not easy to replace.
For these reasons, according to CNN, the experts contacted say that even if Trump does impose secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian oil, they may not be as high as he has threatened. According to Seiglea, a much lower level of between 10 % and 30 % "had more weight". In his opinion. "draconian levels will only be perceived as a bluff - because they will harm the US as much as the other".
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