Trump threatens to impose 100% tariffs on China, why does he ask the EU to take action first? What attitude has China revealed?
According to multiple Western media reports, the Trump administration has been putting greater pressure on the EU in recent times, requiring the EU to impose "secondary sanctions" on countries such as China and India, on the grounds that China and India are buying Russian energy.
However, what makes Europe unable to hold back is that the plan given by the United States is really insincere. On September 9 local time, Trump specifically spoke with senior EU officials on the phone and put forward this requirement. According to his statement, if the EU agrees to the China-India-Cana tax, the United States will follow up.
This meaning is also very obvious, that is, on the road to offending China, the United States requires the EU to charge forward.
The EU's attitude is also interesting. Some people familiar with the matter revealed that the EU has made a tactful statement to the United States that unless the United States also takes action, it is unlikely that the EU will agree to the so-called "secondary taxation" because the EU tends to isolate Russia through sanctions rather than tariffs.
In fact, the "secondary sanctions" proposed by Trump against China and India have no practical possibility.
First of all, the United States and Europe themselves cannot bear the consequences of sanctions.
Taking India as an example, Trump has actually launched "second-level sanctions". He has imposed tariffs of up to 50% on India using the excuse of India's purchase and reselling of Russian oil. But the result was not India's surrender, but fierce confrontation. India immediately turned to China and Russia. After seeing Modi's high-profile appearance at the SCO Summit, Trump could not sit still and took the initiative to ease relations and seek to restart negotiations with India.
China's attitude is even more decisive. On September 10, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has clearly responded that China has always upholds an objective and fair position on the issue of the Ukrainian crisis. China is not the creator of this crisis, nor is it the party involved. We firmly oppose the frequent use of China and the so-called economic pressure on China.
If the United States and Europe initiate "second-level sanctions" against China, it will inevitably be subject to reciprocal countermeasures from China, and such a result is not something the United States and Europe can bear now.
Secondly, the United States and Europe are buying Russian energy themselves. Do they still have to sanction themselves?
In fact, after the United States imposed a 50% tariff on India, India publicly questioned that Europe is also buying Russian energy, why should the United States impose such high tariffs on India alone?
India's statement is not groundless. Currently, major European countries such as France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands are actually importing Russian natural gas. France is even the main entrance to Russia's liquefied natural gas into Europe. The four countries alone imported 16.77 million tons of Russian liquefied natural gas last year. Moreover, according to the EU's plan, they also plan to wait until 2027 before completely banning Russian natural gas.
Even the United States is still importing Russian oil. In addition to direct imports, the United States also imported about US$1.4 billion worth of petrochemical products from India from January to July this year. More than half of these refined crude oil comes from Russia.
Therefore, the United States and the European Union are most likely to fail to ask each other to initiate "second-level sanctions", because they themselves cannot completely cut off ties with Russian energy, and there is no reason to ask other countries, let alone have the ability to directly threaten major powers like China and India to do their jobs according to their conditions.
