US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has sent a blunt message to European allies, calling on them to stop lecturing the United States and start imposing sanctions on Russia at the same level as Washington.
“It is time for our European counterparts to put up or shut up,” Bessent said in an interview with Fox News.
“They keep saying, ‘Oh, the US should do this, the US should do that.’ President Trump has imposed secondary sanctions, or secondary tariffs, on India because of their consumption of Russian oil, and the Europeans haven’t done that yet.” Bessent said.
Bessent accused European nations of continuing to buy refined products from Indian refineries that process Russian crude — a move Bessent says undermines the West’s united front.
“We need some coordination here,” he said. “If we want to have a unified front, which will give President Trump maximum leverage, then I think our European counterparts need to do their part.”
US THREATENS ADDITIONAL TARIFF ON INDIA
Earlier, the US Treasury Secretary warned that the Trump administration could impose additional secondary tariffs on India, with the final decision depending on the outcome of the Alaska talks.
“We’ve put secondary tariffs on Indians for buying Russian oil. And I could see, if things don’t go well, then sanctions or secondary tariffs could go up,” Scott Bessent told Bloomberg TV.
INDIA TARIFFS ‘PROBABLY’ PUSHED PUTIN: TRUMP
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump suggested that tariffs imposed on India may have played a role in Russian President Vladimir Putin agreeing to meet him in Alaska this week to discuss the war in Ukraine.
“Everything has an impact,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News Radio’s The Brian Kilmeade Show. He noted that the additional tariffs he imposed against India “essentially took them out of buying oil from Russia,” adding that India was Moscow’s second-largest customer.
“Certainly, when you lose your second-largest customer and you’re probably going to lose your first largest customer, I think that probably has a role,” he said.
The US imposed a sweeping 50% tariff on India accusing New Delhi of indirectly funding Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
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With inputs from agencies
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