The US plans to impose tariffs of up to 100% on Russian energy buyers such as China and India.

Recently, the United States updated its sanctions bill on Russia, introducing new measures that extend the scope of sanctions to overseas buyers of Russian energy, sparking widespread international concern.

According to the latest reports, on July 14 local time, the U.S. announced an updated version of the sanctions bill against Russia, listing China, India, and other top five importers of Russian crude oil and natural gas as targets. It also authorized U.S. President Trump to impose punitive tariffs of up to 100% on imports from relevant countries.

It is understood that the bill was spearheaded by the late U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and received clear support from the Trump administration, representing a typical mechanism of secondary unilateral sanctions.

Compared to the earlier version of the bill, this update makes key adjustments, reducing the initially proposed maximum punitive tariff of 500% to 100%, while significantly tightening the sanctions authority against third-party countries importing Russian energy.

At the same time, the new bill adds an exemption mechanism, explicitly stating that countries where Russian natural gas imports account for no more than 15% of the total and that have taken substantive measures to reduce such imports can be exempt from the aforementioned high-tariff sanctions, providing policy buffer space for some countries.

The core of these U.S. sanctions targets Russia's two major energy export categories: crude oil and natural gas. It specifically locks onto the top five buyers globally by import volume, with both China and India included.

This sanctions mechanism does not directly target Russian entities but attempts to cut off Russian energy export channels by pressuring third-party energy-importing countries and escalating cross-border tariff barriers, aiming to suppress Russia's economy and energy trade system. It constitutes an act of unilateral extraterritorial sanctions.

In response to the new U.S. unilateral sanctions regulations, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a clear response on July 15. At a regular press conference held that day, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian stated that China firmly opposes illegal unilateral sanctions and extraterritorial jurisdiction that lack a basis in international law and are unauthorized by the UN Security Council. The U.S. frequently imposes secondary sanctions, promotes trade coercion, and employs double standards, violating international trade rules and multilateral consensus, which will ultimately only backfire.

Lin Jian emphasized that China has always adhered to an independent foreign policy and market-oriented trade principles. Legitimate energy trade cooperation between countries, in line with international law and practice, should be respected and protected. Moving forward, China will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of its enterprises and the country's legitimate development interests, and resolutely resist U.S. attempts to interfere in normal economic and trade cooperation between other countries through unilateral sanctions.

Industry analysis points out that energy trade is an important component of the global multilateral trade system. Compliant trade cooperation conducted by countries based on their own energy needs is a legitimate right of sovereign states. The U.S. action of politicizing normal economic and trade activities and abusing trade sanction tools will not only disrupt the order of the global energy market and impact the stability of international industrial and supply chains, but also undermine mutual trust in global economic and trade cooperation, which is not conducive to the international community working together to address common challenges in the energy and economic sectors. Currently, the detailed implementation rules and subsequent pace of execution for this bill remain to be further clarified.