What Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs mean for Russia, China

The White House has clarified its eyebrow-raising decision to keep Russia off President Donald Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs list.

The White House has clarified its decision to keep Russia off President Donald Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs list after it raised some eyebrows, explaining that Moscow already faced tough sanctions – and the threat of even more loomed large.

The Kremlin was among a handful of countries noticeably exempt from Mr Trump’s decision to slap a 10 per cent baseline tariff on all imports to the US, as well as higher duties on some of its biggest global trading partners.

Russia’s absence from the exhaustive list, which was unveiled on Thursday Australia time, was down to previously imposed sanctions already preventing “any meaningful trade” with Moscow, a White House official confirmed to The New York Post.

US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on reciprocal tariffs on his so-called ‘Liberation Day’. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

Three others – Cuba, Belarus and North Korea – were also lumped in the same basket.

“Cuba, Belarus, North Korea and Russia are not subject to the Reciprocal Tariff Executive Order because they are already facing extremely high tariffs and our previously imposed sanctions preclude any meaningful trade with these countries,” the official said.

“President Trump has also recently threatened to impose strong sanctions on Russia.”

The US commander-in-chief warned as recently as last week that Russia risked additional tariffs and sanctions if President Vladimir Putin didn’t agree to a US-backed ceasefire deal to end the bloodshed in Ukraine.

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault – which it might not be – but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Mr Trump vowed in an NBC interview.

“That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25 per cent tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”

Mr Trump warned Russia risked additional tariffs and sanctions if President Vladimir Putin didn’t agree to a US-backed ceasefire deal to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. Picture: Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Meanwhile, Mexico and Canada, too, evaded the new 10 per cent levy given Mr Trump’s move to hit the two major economies with 25 per cent tariffs on auto imports, as well as steel and aluminium.

In announcing the move, Mr Trump argued that “reciprocal” tariffs were a response to duties and other non-tariff barriers put on US goods and designed to boost manufacturing jobs at home.

Despite cancelling its remaining tariffs on imports ahead of the President’s announcement, Israel was still included on the otherwise exhaustive list.

Mr Trump’s higher rates will hit foreign entities that sell more goods to the United States than they buy.

How Trump’s tariffs will impact China

Among the most punishing tariffs were the 34 per cent slapped on imports of Chinese goods, on top of an existing 20 per cent levy – deepening a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Beijing has vowed countermeasures in response and warned the new tariffs, which bring levies on Chinese goods to 54 per cent, will cripple global supply chains – and Washington’s own interests.

“China firmly opposes this and will take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests,” China’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement following Thursday’s announcement.

“There are no winners in trade wars, and there is no way out for protectionism.”

According to Beijing’s customs data, sales of Chinese goods to the US last year totalled more than $US500 billion – 16.4 per cent of the country’s exports.

US duties also threaten to harm China’s fragile economic recovery as it struggles with a long-running debt crisis in the property sector and persistently low consumption – a downturn Beijing had sought to slow with broad fiscal stimulus last year.

China's President Xi Jinping. Picture: Pedro Pardo/AFP

But an intensified trade war will likely mean China cannot peg its hopes for strong economic growth this year on its exports, which reached record highs in 2024.

“The US tariffs on Chinese imports announced so far this year could fully negate the lift from the fiscal stimulus measures announced so far,” HSBC chief Asia economist, Frederic Neumann, told AFP.

While he said the impact on export competition may be slightly mitigated by the fact that all countries are hit by levies, he stressed “the drag on Chinese growth is nevertheless significant”.

Analysts also warned that because of the crucial role Chinese goods play in supplying US firms, the tariffs may also have major knock-on effects.

“US imports from China are dominated by capital goods and industrial materials instead of consumer goods,” Head of China Research at the Institute of International Finance, Gene Ma, told AFP.

“The tariff will hurt US manufacturers as well as consumers.”

“This trade war not only has a destructive impact on China but also on the global trade system,” Chen Wenling, Chief Economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges in Beijing, said.

Originally published as What Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs mean for Russia, China