Trump Dangles New Tariff Hike to Force India Off Russian Crude

Washington has wielded tariffs as a geopolitical club before—from the 1930 Smoot-Hawley duties that aggravated global depression to the 1987 sanctions on Toshiba for selling milling machines to the USSR—but rarely has it so openly linked a partner’s energy choices to market access. Trump’s threat reflects two longer arcs: (1) the post-2018 normalisation of tariffs as quick-trigger executive tools rather than negotiated last resorts, and (2) the expansion of secondary sanctions that attempt to globalise U.S. foreign-policy aims by coercing third-party trade. If the world continues down this path, the 2020s could echo the 1970s oil-politics era—only with tariffs, not OPEC embargoes, weaponised to redirect flows. Over a century, such moves may hasten the fragmentation of the trading system the U.S. itself architected after 1945; partners faced with ever-shifting tariff leverage will diversify away from dollar-centric commerce, as Japan and the EU quietly began after the Trump tariffs of 2018-20. Whether this moment is a blip or a pivot depends on if Congress and future presidents keep the 500 % hammer within arm’s reach—history suggests once a coercive instrument proves useful, it seldom returns to the toolbox.