Summary
Russia was excluded from Trump’s sweeping tariff list due to existing U.S. sanctions that limit trade, White House officials claimed.
Despite lower trade volumes, countries like Syria were still included, prompting skepticism.
Trump has prioritized ending the war in Ukraine and threatened 50% tariffs on nations buying Russian oil. Russian state media framed the omission as sanctions-based, not favoritism, with some mocking Trump’s harsher stance on allies.
Ukraine, meanwhile, faces a 10% tariff despite the country’s strategic partnership with the U.S.
It’s probably dumber than you think why they weren’t on there. The formula they used to come up with the countries tarrifs rate is based simply on trade deficit calculations. So if you aren’t exporting/importing from those countries they wouldn’t be included. It doesn’t even matter if there was a trade surplus.
Sources:
https://www.ft.com/content/e025d7e6-512d-4e82-9c25-7900b94ac153
https://news.sky.com/story/do-trumps-tariff-numbers-add-up-after-liberation-day-announcement-13340903
This can’t explain the exclusion of Russia, since the entirely uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands got their own entry on the list. There cannot be a trade balance with a place where nobody lives. The islands got the “base rate” of 10%, so for Russia to have been excluded there has to have been another reason
Honestly they probably plugged it into Grok and asked it to spit out the list of countries to tariff.
I don’t see how that’s related to excluding particular countries.
Edit: What I mean is that I don’t understand how you conclude
based on the formula.