RoydadNaft –  US President Donald Trump wants to work with EU countries to push Russia to end its war in Ukraine by imposing big new trade tariffs on India and China and impose further sanctions on the shadow fleet, reports say.

The moves, which would only go ahead with European participation, are part of a raft of new and proposed punitive measures for buyers of Russian oil and gas.

“We’re ready to go, ready to go right now, but we’re only going to do this if our European partners step up with us,” one unnamed US official told the Financial Times.

“The president came on this morning and his view is that the obvious approach here is, let’s all put on dramatic tariffs and keep the tariffs on until the Chinese agree to stop buying the oil.

“There really aren’t many other places that oil can go,” the US official added.

US and EU officials also discussed further sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet of tankers, plus further restrictions on its banks, financial sector and major oil companies, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

If effected, the new measures could potentially shift trading patterns for both the shadow and mainstream shipping, given that China and India are key import hubs for oil and gas, as well as exporters of finished and semi-finished goods.

Under Trump’s proposal, which was floated during a meeting with senior US and EU officials in Washington, the US would mirror tariffs imposed by Europe on either country, sources told Bloomberg.

Doing so would potentially lead to a further increase in US levies on imports from China and India.

The US last month raised its tariffs on Indian imports to 50% due to the country’s purchases of Russian oil.

EU member states have been discussing secondary sanctions against countries such as China and India for their purchase of Russian oil and gas, officials told the Financial Times this week.

But doing so may put pressure on European trade relations with Beijing and New Delhi, the report said.

EU sanctions require the backing of all member states and nations, including Hungary, have previously blocked drastic measures that would target Russia’s energy sector.

“It’s a question of, do the Europeans have the political will to bring the war to an end?” the US official told the Financial Times.

“Any of these things will of course, be costly, and for the president to do it, we need our EU partners and ideally all of our partners with us. And we’ll share the pain together.”

Trump told press on Tuesday that he expects to have a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin “this week or early next week”.

Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met at a summit in Beijing last week alongside North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.