Trump's Russia Oil Sanctions Threat Targets China, India

This is precisely what the former US Envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, insinuated in an interview with the New York Post in early February that was analyzed here at the time. The takeaway was that such threats might suffice for getting them to nudge Russia into a deal over Ukraine despite whatever apprehensions Putin might have.

The consequences of not doing so could be their compliance with the US secondary sanctions and all that could entail for the Russian economy if it's deprived of this revenue.

India is more susceptible to this form of American pressure, while China might resist for the reasons explained here , in which case Russia could become disproportionately dependent on China, thus leading to the fait accompli of de facto junior partnership status that Putin has tried his utmost to avoid.

Accordingly, it might only be India that tries nudging Russia into a deal over Ukraine while China might not do what Trump expects, instead openly defying his secondary sanctions if they're then imposed.

This analysis here briefly touches upon the five reasons why Russia might accept or reject a ceasefire in Ukraine, with it becoming increasingly likely that Trump might soon ramp up the pressure on Putin to decide, especially after he also just said that there's a“psychological deadline” for this.

In his words , which followed right after his interview with NBC News,“It's a psychological deadline. If I think they're tapping us along, I will not be happy about it.”

The day before, Trump spent a sizeable amount of the day golfing with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who shared his impression of his counterpart's approach to Russia with the media.

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As he put it ,“When you spend seven hours with someone, you at least get an intuition of the direction in which we're going...The half-ceasefire has been broken by Russia, and I think America, and my sense is also the President of the United States, is running out of patience with Russia.”

This assessment aligns with what Trump told NBC News the next day and his later quip about a“psychological deadline” for concluding talks with Putin. The American leader's preference for wielding sanctions as a foreign policy tool might, therefore, come into play against Russia exactly as was foreseen in early February after Kellogg's cited interview.

This moment of truth could even arrive earlier than expected and thus force Putin to compromise or escalate before he's fully made up his mind either way.

This article was first published on Andrew Korybko's Substack and is republished with kind permission. Become an Andrew Korybko Newsletter subscriber here.

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