Let’s be exceptionally clear. While the amount of trade between the U.S. and Russia is significantly lower than it was before the war, it is not nonexistent. In 2024, the U.S. sent $526.1 million to Russia, and the U.S. imported $3 billion in goods from Russia.
That’s according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and that’s with an existing 35 percent tariff on Russia.
That is a $2.5 billion trade deficit, which is what Trump says he is allegedly trying to eliminate.
That’s a larger trade deficit than the U.S. has with Turkey, Norway, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Poland, and dozens of other countries. None of those other countries’ trade deficits with the U.S. were small enough to be hand-waved away in last week’s announcement. Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. doesn’t trade with Russia, which isn’t true. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. didn’t have any “meaningful” trade with Russia, which isn’t true.
The Kyiv Post took the formula for calculating the retaliatory tariffs published by the U.S. Trade Representative, and applied it to Russia: “if we take the trade deficit of $2.5 billion and divide it by Russia’s exports to the US, $3 billion, then divide that figure by half, the tariff on Russia should be 42 percent.”
Remember, all of the tariffs announced at the White House by Trump last week were in addition to any existing tariffs, according to Leavitt. (CNBC’s Eamon Javers reported, “The 34 percent tariff on China is ON TOP of the previous 20 percent. So that means the rate on China will be 54 percent when these tariffs take effect.”)
In other words, if the U.S. had applied the same rules to Russia as to everyone else, the existing tariff would be hiked from 35 percent to 77 percent — the existing rate of 35 percent coupled with the new 42 percent on top of that.
Nor can the administration argue that Russia was spared because it already has tariffs on it; Syria, under new management, but still under embargoes and sanctions designed to punish the previous regime, is under a new 41 percent tariff from last week’s announcement, on top of the existing ones. (Remember, tariffs are a tax, sanctions are criminal penalties for trading in goods in violation of the law.) In 2024, the U.S. sent $10.3 million in goods to Syria, and Syria sent $1.6 million in goods to the U.S..
Iran received a 10 percent tariff atop existing sanctions. In 2024, the U.S. sent $86 million in goods to Iran, while Iran sent a bit less than $6 million in goods to the U.S..
The U.S. has a trade surplus with Ukraine, of $449 million. Ukraine was hit with a new 10 percent tariff last week.