Tariffs of up to 100 per cent for buyers of Russian oil: China and India took 87 per cent of the barrels

A law has been signed giving the US president the authority to impose tariffs of up to 100 per cent on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas. It is not hard to guess who they are. China and India top the list, and between them they have taken the bulk of Russia's export barrels over the past four years.

The numbers are plain. According to data from the research centre CREA, between December 2022 and August 2026 China took 50 per cent of Russian crude oil exports and India 37 per cent. Turkey and the European Union, 5 per cent each. So while Brussels was boasting about how far it had weaned itself off Russian oil, two countries were buying almost all of it.

The law runs to 48 pages and carries the name of Senator Lindsey Graham, who died on 11 July at the age of 71. Graham was among the loudest advocates of tougher measures against Moscow after the February 2022 invasion, and he died shortly after returning from Kyiv. The law also covers the Russian president, senior officials, financial institutions and the so-called shadow fleet of tankers Moscow uses to get around existing restrictions.

There is a way out, too. Countries that import less than 15 per cent of their natural gas from Russia and are actively cutting that dependency are exempt. In other words: the penalty is aimed at those still buying a lot, not at everyone.

The big words are already coming out of Washington. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal called the measures "devastating sanctions" that will choke Putin's war machine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the adoption, pointing to the symbolism of the date - the same week Russian missiles were again falling on Ukraine.

But this is where the real question starts. A 100 per cent tariff on China and India is not a sanction on Russia, it is a sanction on the global oil trade. If the buyers step back, the barrels do not disappear - they simply find a longer, more expensive and murkier route to market. And when the route to market gets more expensive, the bill is not paid only by whoever writes it.

In the Balkans we know this scene from the other side. Every time the big players fight over energy prices, small countries end up as part of somebody else's reckoning, without anyone asking them. How much of this law will actually be enforced, and how much stays paper for the negotiating table? That is exactly the part nobody says out loud.