Paper tiger Donald Trump continues to bring his allies to order, while being amazingly mild to rivals. Following the fresh imposition of 15% of tariffs on the EU, which the president of the United States considers to be an act of grace on the part of Washington, occupied by a Europe worth nearly $1.5 trillion by investment and trade commitments, America now demands an abandoned Old Continent to introduce prohibitive tariffs of 50-100 percent on Chinese goods and to halt any imports of oil from Russia.
“I am willing to impose serious sanctions on Russia erstwhile all NATO states agree to do the same, and erstwhile all NATO countries halt buying oil from Russia” — wrote Trump on its equivalent of the Public Information Bulletin, a profile on fact Social.
According to Trump himself, the post is at the same time the text of a letter sent “to all NATO and THE WORLD”. Since this is simply a letter from the President-in-Office, it would should be sent by formal means. How did the White home send the President's letter to the WORLD? Is there a planet news office or a planet secretariat?
As in Trump, these communications have no legitimacy in procedures or legal acts. Trade agreements with pacified allies concluded “on the mouth”, nobody ratified anything, just a fewer days later Trump issued an executive regulation based on what he remembered from the conversation – that is, above all, the rate of unilateral duties imposed by the US. He now communicates with his allies, adding “to the news” of the remainder of the globe, utilizing the social networking site he himself founded and owns.
Against the background of the form of communicating with allies that Trump uses, even writing parts of the message in capital letters, as if it were addressed to a spoiled student, it becomes secondary in total. In little than 3 quarters, the U.S. president has so devastated Western global policy standards that fear imagine what it will look like at the end of his second term. possibly the Euro-Atlantic summits will take the form of meetings of mob bosses, as well as people under arms, with whisky glasses, cigar smoke and common utmost distrust.
Europe cuts Russia off from oil profits
The specified fact that 2 1000 characters must be sacrificed on the substance of the form of the message before reaching the meritum perfectly illustrates the kind of this presidency. erstwhile we get to the bottom of this, however, as usual, Trump is putting the ladle against his allies. Especially since his beatings primarily concern Europe, which is allegedly besides small to support Kiev, although "this is not a TRUMPA WAR", only Europe (no and Biden, and Zelenski).
However, it has so far been Europe that has made the top effort to cut the Kremlin from oil revenue. At the same time, the US does not bear any cost of sanctions on oil from Russia, on the contrary, they are among the biggest wins. At least in Biden's time, Washington realized that. The current administration argues that it adds to the full business, which should be added to the long list of lies it promotes.
The European Union has fundamentally blocked oil import from Russia. It introduced a ban on both imports by sea and pipelines. Due to the different levels of dependence on supplies from the East, a number of derogations have been introduced. 1 of the temporarily excluded countries was Poland and Germany – both countries could import oil with a pipeline called “Friendship” by mid-2023. Slovakia and Hungary can inactive do so. Oil imports were besides blocked by sea, which Russia partially bypasses utilizing a fleet of alleged ghost ships that orbit under the flags of various countries of the world, refuel oil on the open sea and sale as non-Russian – that they supposedly found along the way.
Russia besides uses brokers to transport oil through pipes. “Friendship” inactive flows oil to Germany, only now from Kazakhstan. In the first 6 months In 2025 German imports from this direction increased to 1.1 million tonnes of oil from 789 1000 tonnes in the same period of 2024. Of course, Kazakhstan besides has large own oil reserves, but it is likely that at least part of exports are natural material from Russia. For example, Investigations proving that KECBO’s Kazakh oil is highly akin to the Russian REBCO.
Even if Europe's sanctions are punctured, firstly, however, there is simply a vast number of pre-war contingents passing through the sieve, and secondly, the request for specified machinations and the usage of intermediaries besides increases the costs of the Kremlin's war.
By data with Russia Fossil Tracker, which collectively illustrate Moscow's gross from energy resources, Russia's regular turnover from all fossil fuels, averaged from 14 last days, fell from EUR 1.25 billion in April 2022 to EUR 550 million, or more than half. The prices of energy natural materials from the spring of 2022, which is immediately after the aggression against Ukraine, were an anomaly, which temporarily made Moscow gain extra money in the war. However, this continued only until the end of 2022. Since the beginning of the next Western sanctions began to operate on a full scale.
Before the war, the average regular fuel revenues of the Kremlin amounted to little than EUR billion. Thus, the turnover of Russian fuel companies was reduced by about 40% compared to the pre-war realities. This is not a tiny 1 – for comparison Saudi Aramco in 2024 noted 21.5 percent net profit margin. Assuming Russian fuel companies have a akin margin, a 40% decrease results in either selling below costs or a crucial simplification in the sales quota. In addition, costs increased importantly during the period analysed, so it actually weighed on the results of Russian companies much more.
Who contributed the most to this impact on the Russian fuel sector? Definitely the European Union, which was an absolutely key recipient of Russian natural materials before the war. In January 2022, she bought fuel from Russia worth little than EUR 600 million daily, thus liable for as much as 60% of Russian fuel exports. The second China bought fuel worth little than EUR 200 million each day (about 1 5th of Russia's exports), or 3 times little than the EU. In the first half of September 2025, EU associate States purchased fuel worth barely EUR 30 million from Russia all day. So we're talking about reducing purchases of energy resources from the Russian Federation by 95%. Is that not enough?
For the EU revolution, for the USA cosmetics
Since the start of the war, Kremlin's gross from the Chinese direction has not increased sufficiently to compensate for the failure of EU sanctions. Yes, during the first years of the war, China bought Russian fuels for about EUR 250 million a day, about 1 4th more than in the pre-war period. After the start of this year's tariff offensive by Donald Trump, Russia's revenues from fuel sales to the mediate State decreased by about €50 million a day, i.e. to the level just before the war.
Part of Russian fuel supply was adopted by India – before the war they imported it for EUR 5-6 million a day to rise the rate to EUR 150-200 million a day in the first years of the war, or about 30 times. Trump so imposed a 25% punishment work on India, which combined with the "basic duties" which the president set at the same level, gave a staggering 50% on imports from India to the US. Delhi is not going to bend, although India has already reduced its purchases of natural materials from Russia by about €30 million per day this year. So let us besides consider this to Trump, like the simplification of imports of fuels from Russia to the US itself during Biden's time, with a maximum of EUR 50 million a day in April 2022 practically to zero.
Even if the full simplification in imports from the US after the war and this year's simplification in Russia's oil, coal and gas trade with China and India towards the merits of the current administration, this represents around EUR 130 million per day. The European Union has only cut its own imports by about EUR 570 million per day, and the EU besides applies sanctions involving 3rd countries, specified as the maximum price for Russian oil, to which ships calling at European ports must apply.
For the U.S., decoupling from Russian natural materials was a cosmetic change, but thanks to price increases, American fuel corporations recorded alleged unexpected profits. For the EU it was a Copernican energy coup, which was carried out only in little than a year after the outbreak of the war, as the value of European purchases of Russian fuels fell below EUR 100 million per day in early 2023.
The EU has fallen from the seat of the absolutely largest contractor of Russian fuel companies to the 5th place, behind China, India, the remainder of the planet and Turkey. By data In the first 4th of 2021, Russia was liable for 29 percent of oil imports and 48 percent of natural gas imports into Europe. At the same time, the US accounted for 8% of European oil imports and 24% of liquefied gas imports (i.e. ships). In the first 4th of 2025 Russia was already liable for only 2% (yes, 2 percent) of oil imports into the EU and 12% of natural gas imports. The United States has become the main fuel supplier for EU associate States. In the first 4th of this year, the US accounted for 13% of oil imports and 48% of liquefied gas imports into the EU.
By data The Center for investigation on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), in August this year, the EU acquired fuel worth €1.2 billion in Russia. China bought natural materials for €5.7 billion, India for €3.6 billion, and Turkey for 3 billion. However, only 2 of the EU's buyers were dominant – tiny Hungary and Slovakia, which paid Russia almost EUR 700 million for gas and oil delivered by land, thus accounting for almost 60% of all EU imports. The remaining major associate States, France, the Netherlands and Belgium have purchased liquefied gas (LNG) worth a full of little than EUR 300 million through their ports, without buying oil or natural gas at all.
Compromise with paper tiger
Russian natural materials in the EU so buy in most cases 2 of the full population of 15 million countries, which are pro-Trump and Ukrainian-septic. Both besides block the tightening of sanctions and do not even imagine that the natural materials will halt flowing from the East to them. Looking at NATO as a whole, Turkey is the main contractor of Russia, which in August acquired fuel worth EUR 3 billion, half of which were oil purchases and refinery products. More than half a billion euros were paid by Moscow by South Korea, in which coal was liable for 3 quarters of these purchases.
All of these Washington states can be pushed through diplomatic channels much more effectively than Brussels. The second can at most bypass Budapest and Bratislava's veto by exacerbating sanctions by a simple majority, but then there will most likely be an increase – besides on the part of the MAGA – due to the alleged centralisation of Europe and the violation of the law by the EU institutions.
Donald Trump's talking macaroni to his ears. He deceives Europe to conceal his actual face of a paper tiger that can only pacify allies, but to its rivals he is as gentle as a lamb and frightened as an ostrich, not even seeing a drone raid on a supposedly very close ally whose president had only a week earlier hosted in the White House.
Trump is well aware that Europe has limited almost all imports of fuels from Russia, but alternatively of those 95% lost by the Kremlin, he draws attention to those 5% that Putin has remained, knowing well that his 2 tiny agents, Orbán and Fico, are guarding this remnant. This is an exceptional perfidy, but the current president of the United States has already shown that he can be much more impudent, so he doesn't even make much impression.
